It is still over 25 degrees Celsius in Luxembourg, but I have decided to draw a line here and declare that autumn has arrived – or will possibly arrive tomorrow*, when the temperature is expected to drop to 20 degrees. I have mentioned before that for me, the return to the office in September often feels more like the New Year than the New Year: I am full of good intentions, crave discipline and organisation and make detailed plans for my more efficient, productive life that is about to begin. Of course, these things never fully materialise, but I enjoy the feeling and even if SOME of my plans come to fruition, it’s progress.

This autumn, I feel that a certain amount of planning and intention-setting is simply going to be necessary, as it will be a challenging period for me. It will be busy at work – not on par with the insanely busy times of my past, but intense enough to require focus and not letting any deadlines slip. I am also working on a collection of essays, which requires significant amounts of reading, writing and thinking – activities I love, but must be undertaken in a structured way under some time pressure. Below, you will find my 2026 autumn resolutions (or perhaps it’s more of a check list?); I have bought a very expensive Smythson agenda to keep track of progress, so surely success is guaranteed?

Sleep. It is not the first time I’ve promised myself to sleep more, but I am hopeful that progress will be made. Progress has, in fact, already been made – nights where I am getting less than six and a half hours of sleep have become rather rare. The sad truth, however, is that I need more. The times when I could work through the night and hardly notice it the next day are definitely over. If I want to produce meaningful output both at work and in my creative pursuits, this point is non-negotiable. I need to adjust my evening to go to bed earlier, as there is no flexibility in the mornings: I have to get up before 7am with my daughter, to walk to Ville Haute, get a coffee and take the tram to work. I honestly don’t know how I’ll get up in the mornings when L leaves home next year…

Iron. This sounds cooler than it is: I had my bloodwork done and discovered that my iron reserves are pretty much non-existent. My haemoglobin has always been low, but not disastrously so and I don’t remember that my ferritin levels had ever been pointed out to me as a cause of concern. In any case, it is clear that this has also been contributing to my tiredness, together with perimenopause and lack of sleep. I have been taking supplements for a while and managed to drag the iron level over the minimum threshold, but I will continue for now. I highly recommend that if you have symptoms like exhaustion, headaches and hair loss (there are more, but these were my top 3), do check your iron.

Food. Together with sleep, food has been my problem area for years. I never had any serious issues with my weight and I’ve generally been pretty relaxed about my health, so there was no obvious motivation to eat well. But I’m 46 now and my priorities have shifted. I am proud to say that although I am far from perfect, I have improved my diet considerably. I still haven’t figured out how to do breakfast on weekdays (I have no time nor appetite before 7am when I wake up), but have upped my protein, fibre and vegetable intake. Now, I fully agree that the protein craze has become completely ridiculous, normal people do not need to eat like body builders. That said, I tracked my macros very approximately for a few weeks (I refuse to weigh what I eat, I simply refuse) and considering how much I lift and, yes, the aforementioned perimenopause, I was far from getting enough protein. I am not quite there yet, but much better than I used to be, so now I’m paying more attention to fibre. And eating less sugar.

Alcohol. I am not giving up alcohol entirely, but I am having a dry September (no slip-ups so far) and perhaps also a dry first half of October. After that I’m going sailing in Greece, so that’ll definitely not be dry. I’m generally fine with my alcohol intake, but when I need to be productive and have little time, it really helps not to drink. And it’s an easy win, as I’m a very social and seasonal drinker, so autumn in Luxembourg is a great time for me to take a break.

Exercise. I’m giving myself a 4+ for exercise: I go to the gym and reformer Pilates very regularly and walk a good amount. Not 10k every day, but my average hovers around 7-8k, which I think is pretty solid. In an ideal world, it should probably be gym thrice and Pilates twice a week rather than the other way around as it currently is – mostly because the Pilates studio is literally a minute away from my home. But a new gym has just opened 30 seconds from my apartment, so I expect to fix this ratio soon. Once that is done, I plan to add one boxing session a week and after that, I’ll give myself a 5. Yes, all these activities take quite a bit of time, but without the exercise I also lack the energy to do all those things I want to do this autumn.

Reading. I will need to be a much more disciplined reader this autumn than I usually am. For my writing project, I need to reread a number of books that have been important for me in the past, plus other books relevant for writing about these books. Which is, overall, a lot of fun. But reading for review purposes is a bit more intense than just reading. It also means that my TBR is largely pre-determined and I have to skip most new releases, which I find difficult. Especially as I was doing so well with reading literary fiction this year! And there is so much good stuff coming out! I have already realised that I do have to take breaks from my ‘required reading’, no matter how good it is, and read something lighter and/or random in between (definitely including the new Emily St John Mandel).

Writing. I also need to come up with a writing schedule that I will stick to, which I haven’t been particularly successful with until now. I have the tendency to wait for that perfect moment – when I am not tired, when I feel inspired, when all the research is done – to write, which will of course never arrive. I am capable of endless procrastination via preparation, there are always additional books that I can/should read for research before actually writing one word. So I’m aiming for one essay per week, even if it’s just a very rudimentary draft.

Things. It is sadly an undisputable fact that clothes and skincare take up a lot of my mental and physical space. This became abundantly clear in the beginning of September when I was trying to organise my closet: one can have an amazing system in mind, but if there is simply too much stuff in the first place, one will still have too much stuff, no matter how it’s organised. It’s not that I buy random clothes that I hate and never wear. Actually, it’s the opposite – I have been buying clothes for a long time and a lot of it still looks great. But it adds up. I also spend too much time looking at things I might buy and analysing whether buying them is a good idea. As a partial fix, I am not allowed to buy any clothes, skincare and makeup for a month. It is not a super strict no-buy and I’m still allowed to buy books (especially for the project), but I really hope it frees up some of my time and energy.

Blog. It is probably rather obvious that with everything else going on, the blog is not going to be my number one priority and that’s OK. It hasn’t been a big priority for years, to be honest. But I do want to post one or two things per month, as I still enjoy doing it and I know that against all odds, there are still people who enjoy reading it. Despite me posting very, very little this year, the reader figures are actually up, mostly thanks to the Le Labo posts (the first has been read by a rather astonishing 30 000 people). I really want to do a similar one for Chanel exclusifs, but that requires getting my hands on the samples of scents that I do not own and doing some proper testing. I will in any case do my ‘best of’ posts in the end of the year, as I always love writing them. If there is anything particular that you would like me to cover, let me know, it always motivates me to an insane degree.

I am aware that this is a weird little life update in the form of a pretty boring list of things I should be doing. But I often find it helpful to read about other people’s planning, so I post this in the same spirit. Perhaps you’ll find something here that motivates you or the other way around, something that reassures you that other people also do not have their life fully together.

*Full disclosure: today is, in fact, already tomorrow – I wrote the post last night but didn’t manage to publish. It’s 19 degrees.