If baseball--important baseball--is on TV every night, and if I find myself spending the time I'm not writing letters and reviews wondering how I am going to finish all the letters and reviews I have to write, then it must be October.
For such activities--especially the bureaucratic, emcomiastic writing--I have come up with a verby-word: "octobering." (Ah, the gerund, a post for another day, perhaps in November.) For the next 26 days, octobering is what I will be doing.