Hello friends!

Is it September already?! I can hardly believe how quickly this summer went by!

Yesterday was such a strange day as I watched my brothers enjoy their last day of summer before getting ready for the first day of school. And even though I’m not going back to school this year (thank God!), I was still hit with a wave of nostalgia from the past year. For those of you who don’t know, I just graduated from teacher’s college in the Spring, and so school was pretty much on my mind the whole year.

Over the past few years, I’ve always come to regard the first day of school as a return to routine, even before I went to teacher’s college. I’m not sure why this is, but there’s just something about the first day of school that has been wired in my brain as a new beginning and a fresh start. And so I’ve traditionally used to as a turning point in my own life, after the craziness of summer, even when I haven’t been physically returning to school, to make new goals and get back to business. And this year’s no different.

This past summer was one in which I got very little done; a lot was going on and I found it hard to focus. I spent the first half of summer feeling guilty about this, about not writing or accomplishing any of the other goals I had set for myself, but quickly I realised that sometimes you just have to let go. I have a hard time doing this, and usually spend a lot of time feeling guilty, but I tried to change this this summer. I enjoyed myself as much as I could, knowing that once September came I would become focused and get back to work.

And so I spent the day yesterday making a list of goals for myself for the month. As some of you might know, I love making lists. But they’re usually vague and just titled ‘to do’ with no indication of when I need to accomplish them by. But this time I made my list just for September and now, I find that my list is a lot more manageable. Instead of just writing ‘start writing next novel’, I’ve written ‘begin drafting next novel’ because I realise that that’s a more realistic goal for the month. Hopefully making smaller goals for myself will help me feel more accomplished.

Over the summer, I stopped using my personal planner, because things just sort of happened on a whim. But in my attempt to get more focused and get more done, I plan on going back to writing things down, even things I hope to accomplish each day. Naturally I felt that a new (cute) agenda was necessary for this! 😛

Anyways, I hope the beginning of this month finds you all well. I hope you all had a relaxing and restful summer!

Thanks for reading,

Ikhlas