Make Time For Yourself This Fall
- Leanne Kampfe
- 6 days ago
- 5 min read
I started a new planner this week.
Fresh pages. Nothing crossed out yet. Every square still empty and full of possibility, like this is going to be the school year I finally color code something.
By Thursday, half those pages were already full.
That's the thing about a blank planner, and honestly about September in general. It feels like a clean slate for a few days, and then it fills up so fast you start wondering if it was ever actually empty to begin with.
September Sells You a Fresh Start
There's something about this time of year that convinces us we're getting a reset.
School starts. Routines snap back into place. Summer's chaotic, no-bedtime, we'll-figure-it-out-later energy is supposedly behind us.
And for about a week, it feels true.
Then the calendar starts filling in. Practices. Meetings. That thing you said you'd help with. The appointment you've been putting off since June.
Before you know it, September looks a lot like August, just with more structure and less sunscreen.
If you've caught yourself thinking things will feel more manageable once September settles in, I'd gently ask: settles into what, exactly?
"When Things Calm Down" Is a Moving Target
As new and shiny as the start of the school year is, that seems to last about five minutes.
September becomes October. October becomes the holidays. The holidays become January, and January arrives with its own brand-new list of things to get through before you can relax.
Sadly, there is no finish line where obligations stop and free time begins.
There's just an ongoing negotiation between what needs to happen and what you actually want to happen.
I'm feeling this in real time. I want more balance in my life, and I also want this business I've worked so hard to build to keep growing. Both of those things are true at the same time.
Apparently ambition and a desire to sit down occasionally are allowed to coexist.
I'm not writing this from the other side of the problem, like I've cracked the code and am now handing you the answer. I'm still figuring out how to make room for the life I want while taking care of the life I already have.
Being Busy Isn't the Problem
A full life isn't automatically a bad thing.
Some of what fills your calendar, you actually want there. Work you care about. Kids' activities you enjoy showing up for. Commitments that matter to you. People you love.
The problem is when obligations get automatic first access to every open hour, and the things you'd actually enjoy get whatever's left over... if anything is left over at all.
It's not about doing less. It's about who gets to go first.
And if you're used to taking care of everything and everyone else before deciding what you have time for, putting yourself somewhere other than last can feel surprisingly uncomfortable.
But waiting until everything else is handled isn't much of a strategy.
Because everything else is never actually handled, am I right?
How to Make Time For Yourself Before Your Calendar Fills Up
We tend to wait until we know exactly what we want to do before we make room for it. Maybe you'll get together with a friend if you can find a night that works. Maybe you'll go to the apple orchard if there happens to be a free Saturday. Maybe you'll finally make that appointment once you see what the month looks like.
But by the time you know, the hour is already gone. Someone else claimed it.
I'm wondering if time for yourself has to work the other way around. Protect the hour first. I use that strategy all the time for work.
You don't necessarily have to know what it's for yet. You don't have to earn a Saturday afternoon by finishing everything else on the list. You don't even need a particularly impressive plan.
You're allowed to leave some space open on purpose and figure out later what belongs there.
"Time" Doesn't Have to Equal All Day
I also think we struggle with this because we've made “doing something for myself” way too complicated.
Enjoyable doesn't have to mean elaborate. It doesn't have to be a weekend trip, an entire day at the spa or a whole event with a guest list and a theme.
A bonfire counts.
An hour wandering an apple orchard counts.
Coffee with a friend you haven't seen since spring counts.
A permanent jewelry appointment that fits into a weeknight counts.
That's something I've thought about a lot in creating the studio experience at All That Glitters. Most of the women who come through my door aren't people with endless amounts of free time. They're fitting me in between work and dinner. Meeting a friend after a long day. Bringing their daughter along for an hour together. Stopping in because they decided they wanted something pretty and didn't need a bigger reason than that.
The experience doesn't have to consume your whole day to feel like you did something for yourself.
We tend to reserve “doing something for myself” for the big, obvious gestures and skip right past the small ones that are actually available to us this week.
Maybe the answer is to lower the bar. Let small things count as much as they actually do.
What Do You Want to Make Room for This Fall?
So instead of asking what has to fit into your fall calendar, try asking a different question:
What don't you want pushed out of it?
Not everything. Just one thing.
Maybe it's finally starting that charm necklace you've been eyeing.
Maybe it's getting matching bracelets with your kid before they decide that's uncool.
Maybe it's making plans with the friend you've exchanged “we need to get together soon” texts with for six months.
Maybe it's wandering through an orchard, sitting around a bonfire or protecting one evening when absolutely nobody gets to ask anything of you.
Maybe it's just an hour that has nothing to do with anyone else's schedule but yours.
Whatever it is, the point isn't to add another obligation to an already full plate.
It's to make sure at least one thing on that plate is there because you chose it, not because it was simply what was left.
LIke I said, my planner is already filling up for September. Most of those squares are the usual stuff: work, commitments and things that have to happen whether I want them to or not.
But I left a few blank on purpose.
Not because I know yet what's going there.
Just because I wanted to make sure something would.
What are you leaving room for this fall?
If a studio appointment is one of those things, I'd love to see you. All That Glitters offers permanent jewelry, the Charm Bar, Scent Bar, ear piercing and more at my Minnetonka studio, all designed to be an easy little bright spot in an otherwise full week.
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