The pumpkin spice is creeping back in, I’m trading up my iced coffees → hot chai and summer lounge sets → cozier fall lounge sets (yes, I don’t wear "real" clothes very often).
If you didn’t know, growing up I was homeschooled, and the biggest thing that I always craved was back-to-school shopping not even for the new clothes and shoes but for the school supplies.
*Glittery Lisa Frank notebooks, scented erasers, freshly sharpened pencils, a blank composition notebook, a new backpack... Pure JOY*
Now, as an adult, I find myself making September all about getting back to business. It's my way of embracing the season change and settling into the seasons ahead.
It’s my chance to refresh my office and routines with clean planners, new desk decor (because you spend half your life here, might as well make it pretty), new pens, and even a little tech refresh if needed.
This year, here’s what I’ve ordered for my own little back to biz shopping spree:
-
Swapping out a monthly planner for a wall corkboard with sticky notes + push pins
-
A desk lamp/warmer combo (I will be using this to keep my coffee warm, instead of melting a candle - but you can also look up aromatherapy blends like this)
To me, September feels like a fresh start on the year. Like pushing the reset button after summer vibes had me feeling a little too chilled out. It's a way to take advantage of all that vitamin D from the summer motivating me, whereas in January when most people are jumping on a "new year, new me" mentality I feel like a little winter troll rolling out of hibernation after the holidays.
Clean Up + Reset
-
Clear your desk. (Yes, even the pile of miscellaneous notes).
-
Clean out your downloads + desktop. (Find your “screenshots” folder... It’s probably chaos in there.)
-
Organize your digital files. In Google Drive or Dropbox, create three fresh folders for Q4:
-
Priority: These tasks you need to tackle first thing in the day.
-
Idea Phase: When you catch a free minute to get creative, and explore those big ideas? This is your idea phase to begin exploring and developing new ideas for your business. For me, I schedule specific times of the day for this folder because I could spend hours in this one!
-
Bookshelf: Brilliant-but-not-right-now ideas to revisit later.
-
-
Tidy your inbox. Unsubscribe from clutter, or use the “Manage Subscriptions” feature if your email platform has it.
Head to your Gmail → On the left, click More (just a few below "Inbox" depending on labels you have set up) and then Manage subscriptions.
* When you unsubscribe from a sender, any new emails from them go to your spam folder.
* To view all emails from a sender, click the sender’s name or avatar (If you want to keep SOME things from senders in your inbox I recommend doing this and manually unsubscribing through them, because some allow you to set preferences like newsletter vs. marketing emails).
* To unsubscribe from emails, some senders may direct you to their website. If a pop-up appears - click Go to Website to unsubscribe directly from the sender’s website.
The ability to manage email subscriptions is gradually rolling out and may not be available to you yet.
I'm still playing with the new features Google is rolling out, so stay tuned and I'll be sure to share more if I find cool new features!
Why Now Is the Time
This is the perfect time to check in with your business and assess where you are meeting your goals for the year, as well as what you can put into action before the year-end.
You’ve got four whole months left in the year. Enough time to make progress on those shelved projects, and step into January feeling ahead of the game instead of feeling like you're hustling your way through every holiday. We aren't going into 2026 burnt out on our successes, friends.
*May contain affiliate links which will generate us a small amount of income, at no additional cost to you.
Comments