Hey friends, it’s Lizzie! Somewhere around 25, summer stopped being three months of freedom and turned into “wait, it’s already September?” The days aren’t shorter, I promise. We just stop doing the small stuff that used to fill them.
This isn’t a bucket list of expensive trips or once-in-a-lifetime experiences. It’s a list of tiny, doable things that actually make a summer feel like a summer — the kind of stuff that’s easy to let slide once you’re paying a mortgage and running a calendar with six colors on it.
The Water Ones
If you have any access to water at all — a pool, a lake, a coastline — use it more than you think you need to. Go for a swim on a random Tuesday evening, not just on vacation. Try wakesurfing or paddleboarding once, even if you’re bad at it (I am extremely mediocre at both and have zero regrets). Bring a speaker and actually float for an hour with no agenda. Watch a sunset from a boat, a dock, or a beach towel — it costs nothing and somehow never gets old.
The Slow, Small Ones
Cut up a whole watermelon and eat it standing at the kitchen counter with your hands. Sit outside with your morning coffee instead of taking it straight to your desk. Bring a guitar (or a speaker playing one) somewhere scenic even if you can only play three chords. These sound almost too small to write down, and that’s exactly the point — they’re the ones that actually happen, because they don’t require planning.
The Social Ones
Host a low-effort night in — a pool table, a deck of cards, or a game nobody’s played since college. Say yes to the boat invite instead of the “maybe next time.” Take one genuinely spontaneous day trip with zero Pinterest-board planning behind it. Call the friend you keep meaning to call instead of texting “we should catch up soon” for the fourth month in a row.
I wrote a whole post on why I think boat days are non-negotiable, and this is basically that philosophy applied to the whole season — say yes to the low-effort, high-payoff stuff before summer quietly ends without you.
The Food and Drink Ones
Summer food should require almost no effort, and that’s a feature, not a shortcut. Grill something outside instead of turning on the oven. Make one good pitcher of something cold — a real lemonade, an iced coffee, whatever you actually like — instead of buying it out every time. Eat a meal outside, even if “outside” is just your own porch. Try one new-to-you fruit or produce item from the farmer’s market instead of the same grocery-store rotation. None of this needs a recipe card. It just needs you to actually do it instead of scrolling past the idea for the third summer in a row.
The Ones for You, Specifically
Try one new physical thing you’ve been curious about — a class, a sport, a hobby — purely because it sounds fun, not because it’s a New Year’s resolution in disguise. Wear the outfit you’ve been “saving.” Take the photo you keep almost taking. Let yourself be a little extra about a sunset. Your 30s are genuinely the best time to stop rationing joy for a special occasion that may never come.
What to Skip If You’re Short on Time
If you only have room for a handful of these this year, here’s my honest ranking: prioritize the water ones and the social ones first — they’re the ones that need other people or a specific season, so they don’t roll over to October. The slow, small ones and the food ones can happen any random weekday, so don’t stress about scheduling those in advance. Save the “for you” category for whenever you have a genuinely open afternoon with nowhere to be — forcing that one onto a tight schedule usually backfires.
How to Actually Get Through the List
Don’t try to do all of this in one weekend — that’s how ambitious lists turn into guilt by August. Pick two or three that genuinely excite you, put a rough date next to each one, and let the rest happen or not happen without stress. The goal isn’t a perfect summer. It’s a summer you actually remember, instead of one that blurred past while you were waiting for a slower week that never came.
Why This Actually Matters
I know a list like this can read as fluff compared to everything else on your plate. But I’ve genuinely noticed the difference between the summers where I did a handful of these things and the ones where I let the season pass on autopilot — the ones with a little intention feel longer, fuller, and easier to look back on. That’s the whole case for your 30s being the best decade, honestly: you finally have the self-awareness to notice when a season is slipping by, and enough control over your own time to actually do something about it. Twenty-two-year-old me didn’t plan a single one of these on purpose. She got lucky that summer was mostly unstructured anyway. Thirty-something me has to be a little more deliberate about it, and I’d honestly rather be deliberate than let it happen to me.
Your Questions, Answered
What if I don’t live near water? Swap the water items for whatever your version of it is — a splash pad, a friend’s pool, a sprinkler and a lawn chair. The point is being outside doing something a little silly, not the specific location.
How do I actually stick to a list like this instead of forgetting it exists? Put two or three items on your calendar with an actual date, the same way you’d book a haircut. Anything without a date on the calendar tends to quietly not happen.
Is it too late to start this list if summer’s already half over? No — most of these take an afternoon, not a season. You can realistically knock out several of these in the last few weeks before fall, no advance planning required.
Now tell me, friends: what’s still on your list this year? Drop it in the comments so I can cheer you on. And come find me on Instagram @sealillly for more of the small stuff. Love you, mean it. 💛
