Seasonal Thoughts for September 2025
Is it Autumn yet? In the UK, the Meteorological Autumn started on the 1st September 2025 and is based on calendar months. The Astronomical Autumn starts on 22nd September 2025 at 13:19 BST and is aligned to the Sun’s apparent position in the sky relative to Earth’s equator. This is interesting, but why is this important to me?
I have always loved having a wall planner showing the year ahead. Whether that be traditional the January to December, or as I worked in Academia for many years, the Academic year which usually starts in September. What I would try to do is set my expectations for the year in January, meticulously planning when holidays should be, and setting goals for things I cared about.
Working in Academia almost always meant having a compulsory long Christmas break. My planning would start in January, I’d manage to follow it until around April, then become burned out during the long summer days, and eventually pick up the pieces again in September when the Academic calendar came back around for a new attempt at planning.
From September onwards, work was always busy starting the new academic year, and I would eventually fall in a heap on December the twenty something, burned out, with the Christmas period to recover. The last three months of the year were just something to get through, to struggle along in order to have a break, and begin to welcome a return to the ever so slightly longer days to come.
In January 2024, I won three neurodiversity focused coaching sessions, and then around a year later, I had another seven sessions. If you’re trying to work things out, coaching is a great way to explore topics, set goals, provide accountability, and it can be a validating experience. One of the topics I covered was the way I see the year as one long sprint and discussed ways to change it into shorter sprints.
The Winter Solstice has long been a time of excitement for me, as the days that follow will always be longer than the previous for the next six months. In contrast, the Summer Solstice has been a day of relative sadness, as it starts the gentle, yet non-negotiable, countdown towards the shorter and darker days to come. The Spring and Autumn equinoxes would pass by without me really noticing them.
I have been more observant during 2025 to what types of personal projects I am working on, when I am working on them, and what my energy levels are. It is sometimes said that ’time in non-linear’ in relation to ADHD. I have noticed a seasonable pattern that tends to see time stretch by becoming busy during the latter stages of each season. This has been an interesting insight to reflect on and try to work out why.
These seasonal patterns may be due to extended periods of light, heat, darkness, wet weather, or coldness as the weather conditions become wearing, uncomfortable, and no longer tolerable. I may also be in search of novelty, after the weather of the season becomes too common, or a means of distraction intended for time to pass more quickly. The times that I am busy seem to coincide with when I am at my lowest energy, lowest comfort, or both.
This isn’t sustainable, but the information is useful for future planning, to improve and spread out my flow state throughout the year, and plan for activities and personal projects that complement my natural energy levels and tolerances. I can also take temperature and the length of days into account, as well as build in periods of rest.
I have become more aware of the regular cycle of my interests as well, and some can be more aligned with the seasons, especially if they can provide a positive spin on the less favourable days of the year.
The Meteorological seasonal calendar, with it’s structure of four blocks of three whole months each, soothes my Autistic need for planning, and the Astronomical seasonal calendar excites my ADHD interests of the stars, history, and of Earth’s tilt, etc. This could make for an interesting calendar to help provide some structure and balance, and deadlines and excitement.
What I may consider doing is celebrating the 19 or 20 day duration between the Meteorological and Astronomical season start dates with a burst of project energy, and to support this, mirroring this duration backwards into the latter days of the previous season as a period of slowing down, rest, and reflection. The intervening 50 or so days could then be broken down into seasonal activities and interests.
This may even lead to new hobbies and interests, and reduce my reliance on YouTube to keep my interest orientated brain occupied. I am never going to become bored, I have too many projects and hobbies on the go for that, but I could also tackle the more difficult tasks instead. As an example, I excitedly watch hardware hacking videos on YouTube, but I also have all the tooling and much of the understanding to do this myself. It is this ‘getting out of my head’ and experiencing it for myself that I need to become better at.
This may all sound unnecessary or like I am over-thinking it, but the more that I work with myself, instead of against it, the more I can enjoy, be present, and achieve interesting things. I love planning, but can’t necessarily maintain interest for long-term plans. I love rules, so maybe if the plan had more rules, then that would keep me interested. I can also write software and have a smart home in the making, so there are lots of possibilities to make this an immersive experience through gamification.
As the year progresses, I am still on track to achieve my main goal for the year. The 2-minute rule has been my focus, not just for completing small tasks, but also for organising the thousands of bits and bobs, components, tools, etc. that I use for my personal projects. I should be able to work on a project and have anything I need to hand within 2 minutes, meaning what was previously considered tidy, now needs to be carefully labelled, boxed, categorised, and organised in order to achieve this. With this achievement, better planning, and improvements in LLMs and Agentic AI, 2026 is looking like it could be a very productive year!