Last Monday morning was a bit of a struggle, so on my way I stopped for a cup of caffeine. I zombie-walked back to the car, clicked the auto-unlock, got in, went to prop my tea in the handy cup holder but there was a tape measure in the way. “‘I wonder where that came from? And aren’t the seats unusually clean and tidy. Odd.”

Wait for it . . . (cogs turning very slowly) . . . “Ahhhh! Not my car!”

How embarrassing. To be fair, same make and colour, but still! I sheepishly exited, over-egging my ‘I’m not a car thief’ really impersonation, as I slunk the 50 yards to where I had actually parked.

Moral of the story: if you leave car doors unlocked you’re likely to find overtired strangers in there, confused as to why their key won’t turn.

How is it the end of October already? I’m still waiting for the ‘post-summer, kids are back in school’ lull I expected: the return to gentle routine and, to be honest, a bit of welcomed boredom. Hasn’t happened yet. It seems that everything people didn’t want to organise in the heat of summer, is scheduled now.

Fun-runs and fairs, amazing theatre performances, exciting boat races, back-to-back birthday parties, working my entire weekend in my other job — as chauffeur. It’s all lovely stuff I don’t want to miss, but when you start looking forward to Monday morning and getting back to work so you can relax a little — red flag! Work/life balance is a necessity (and yes, I tend to favour the ‘life’ end) but when the whole see-saw is amped-up to max, something’s likely to blow.

It’s scary that it’s Halloween. Halloween’s my calendar milepost that screams Thanksgiving and Christmas are hurtling around the corner. People are already talking office parties, boat parade and present shopping.

I’ve heard mention of goings-on lined up for January and February just for want of finding an available weekend.

I reached out to a friend last week that I haven’t seen in ages about meeting up for coffee and a chat. Her assistant e-mailed back, ‘Yes, I’ll pencil you in November 27th’. I was careful to repeat the date in my confirmation in case she’d made a typo and got the month muddled. Nope. Coffee scheduled a month in advance.

I almost checked ‘November 2015’ to be sure.

When did life get so busy?

And what can I say, slow down and don’t enjoy all the great things going on right now? They’re the best bits; the whole point, right? But whether you approach life as a marathon or a series of intense cross-fit sessions, it requires ample rest and recovery or it leads to burnout and injury. Winter is coming — cold and flu season.

I don’t mean to be alarmist, just a gentle reminder to pace ourselves. Consider the ‘you’ wrapped up in all this busy.

The whole see-saw pivots on top of health and wellbeing: enough rest, good nutrition, inner calm and grounding. They are central to the whole balancing act. These things can’t be scheduled a month away. Do them now. Please look after yourselves, fellow merrymakers. Don’t become zombies ... (and lock up your cars)!

Julia Pitt is a trained success coach and certified NLP practitioner on the team at Benedict Associates. For further information contact Julia on 705-7488, www.juliapittcoaching.com.