Today is Battery Collection Day in my city. A chance to say goodbye to all those dead batteries I've been collecting all year. I put them out with the many bags of dead leaves I raked this week. There's also a recycling box full of old paperwork I managed to get rid of while cleaning my office.

Autumn is naturally a time to purge and simplify. Animals retreat into their homes, stockpiling food or preparing for hibernation. Trees, anticipating the destructive force of winter, pull their energy inwards and shed their leaves. Farmers harvest the year's crops and sell what they can, or store some away for the cold months.

Coincidentally, or maybe not, I also feel a deep urge to simplify my own life, to pare down, to have less, to do less. I'm saying "no" to more opportunities, the ones that don't feel like they fit. I have my few favourite clients, and I'm not looking to take on new work. I'm looking to declutter my house, to sell, donate or discard items which I don't need.

I feel a desire to finish things instead of starting new things. I'm playing video games I started when I was a child but never finished. I'm reading books that sat with a bookmark in them for years. I'm checking items off my To Do List that have been on there all year. I'm filing taxes and clearing out drawers and getting things done. I'm drinking tea that has sat in my cupboard all year, enjoying tossing the empty boxes away.

There's a coziness that comes with simplifying. As I check off each task, discard each item, or finish each project, my world feels calmer.

Eventually Winter will be here, a time to hunker down and enjoy the simple life. Eventually it will be time to start new projects, to expand my world and embrace the excitement. My wife will be having a baby, and there'll be new life in our home, a new beginning.

For now, though, you'll find me drinking tea and trying to finally beat Final Fantasy on the NES.