Simple Fall Porch Decorating + One Genius Hack

Looking for quick and easy ways to welcome fall to your home? Start with your front porch!

How do you organize your day?

Do you just take the tasks as they show up?

Do you just clear your schedule and get ready for all the last-minute things that come your way?

Do you make a list?

If you are a list maker, have you ever had a day where your to-do list stretches around the block?

You try and get it all done.

Truly.

You try and try and try and try, but for every item that you check off, you add two more.

And somewhere…..in the middle of all that trying…..

….you have a brilliant idea.

You are going to multi-task.

I know—right?  Brilliant. Just between us? I thought it was a brilliant idea, too.

Two things at the same time?

Crossing two items off the list with a single stroke of the pencil?

GOLD.

Brilliant idea you tell yourself.  Simply brilliant.

It has to work.  I mean, you’ve seen your mom successfully do it and she’s amazing. You’ve seen friends multi-task with super time-efficient results.

I mean, really?

How hard can it be?

Kind of like rubbing your stomach and patting your head.

// solar lanterns //

At first, the whole thing works like a charm.

You order groceries on your phone while adding grapevine pumpkins to urns on the front porch.

You edit all the photos for this post while supervising the vacuum cleaner on the floor.

You sweep off the porch and clean off the top of these amazing solar lanterns so that they will shine brightly throughout the fall season without any batteries or electricity—all while practicing your speech for a social media marketing event next week.

(total aside: I’ve shared the lanterns before in the spring and you all sold them OUT. You can see the solar lanterns here.)

You become the most efficient of people.

Like a talk show might call you up to interview you to see how you get it all done. Or the local news might stop by with cameras just to witness all your efficiency.

Seriously.

If you were a superhero they would call you the efficienterator.

Along the way, something amazing happens.

Your list gets shorter and shorter and shorter. You decorate the porch in under an hour. You add the leaves and the urns and these large grapevine pumpkins and stems and stand back and celebrate you and your fall decorating self.

You blink twice and there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

Why didn’t I try this before you tell yourself?

It’s going so well and zipping by so fast without a hitch.  Everything is wonderful.  Everything is working out.

Until.

Until it doesn’t.

Until you decide that you are going to cut off the hem of your new jeans to fray them and talk on the phone at the same time.

Simple, right?

I mean isn’t that what speakerphones are for?

And besides? Remember?

You are the CAPTAIN OF EFFICIENCY.

The conversation goes a little like this.

You: (phone under your chin–jeans in the other scissors in the other) Hello?

Her: I need your opinion.

You: (clip….clip….clip) Of course.  You have come to the right place.  My specialty is opinions.

Her:  What do you think if I go skiing right before Christmas?

You:  (clip) Sounds like fun. (clip) Who are you going with? (clip clip ) I think I…...(pauses)  

……ohhhhhhh nooooooooooo.

Pause.

Silence.

You:  (with the sound of anguish in your voice) I have to call you back.

You get off the phone because you’ve just clipped your jeans right into TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT LENGTHS.

Yep.

And now one of the legs is waaaay too short to even be considered cropped. It’s heading into gaucho territory.

Good times.

Now you’ve added—“google how to cut jeans into jean shorts” to your to-do list.

And instead of multitasking?

Sigh.

You’re extra-tasking.

The moral of the story?  The lesson learned right here in the middle of this fall tour of my front porch?

Multi-tasking is awesome.

But trying to get everything done in double time can be overwhelming and exhausting.

So today my friends take a lesson from someone who has a new pair of cut-off jean shorts.

Press the pause button.

Slow down.

Take a break.

Then look around at the beautiful fall leaves outside, smell the crispness in the air, smile at the world, take a sip of coffee, enjoy the sunshine….

….and tackle one thing at a time.

disclosure: affiliate links are used in this post.

That one simple idea completely transformed the vibe — try it yourself and let us know how it worked!