Remember that your grass and your fingernails take a long time to grow. And that your car might rust in the snow and you’ll have to get it touched up to look spiffy again. Or that your song’s lyrics might not come out right when first written; that they’ll take time to compose and edit and structure. This is what Courtney Barnett sets out to remind us.

Barnett is back with her third studio album, telling us about seemingly trivial but very true things about life. Things Take Time, Take Time is simply an album full of her advice. Offering cleverly delivered dialogue and anecdotes on life, she tells listeners to take notes, make lists and deal with things as they come— to take life day by day. Through and through, the album maintains a subdued vibe during its roughly 35-minute runtime across 10 tracks.

The second single, “Before You Gotta Go,” features a mid-tempo drumbeat that floats behind the casual strumming of Barnett’s guitar. Most of the lyrics feel directed at friends, or even at Courtney Barnett herself, instead of being about her romantic relationships. This is true for most of the lyrics. They aren’t love stories but honest conversations between friends. “Don’t you know I’m not your enemy?/ Maybe let’s cut out caffeine,” she gently sings.

She’s empathetic throughout her lyrics and deliverers her advice softly. On “Take It Day by Day” she tells a friend they shouldn’t “stick that knife in the toaster,” and reminds them she’ll be checking in next Tuesday to make sure they’re still eating; and again the following week. She sings in a deadpan manner, never striving to push her voice into a run or much higher or lower than her low drawl. She sounds like Zooey Deschanel, albeit a bit less feminine and cutesy. She wrote the track for a group of friends she saw weekly via Zoom, giving the lyrics an all the more wholesome meaning when thinking of those awkward and tumultuous first few months of the pandemic.

On “Turning Green” she sings about a friend who finds love that makes them so happy they begin seeing flowers in the weeds. With an electric guitar to introduce the track before bringing in light percussion, Barnett creates a groovy track that stands out as both the album’s central track and as one of its best.

“Write a List of Things to Look Forward To” once again finds her taking life just as it comes at her. “I’m looking forward to the next letter I’m gonna get from you,” she sings as a baby is born and another man lies dying in the world around her. She then asks her friend to join her and sit while the world burns so they can scream self-righteous things together. Writing lists of forthcoming positive things is actually a technique Barnett’s friends employed to help her out of a depressive funk. Making a song of their advice feels genuine and reminds us of the value of friendships like this.

On “Splendour” she misses time watching the sunset on a cliffside and the friend with whom she’d shared that memory. “Oh no, oh no, oh no,” she sings, switching up her tone ever so slightly, sounding angsty and youthful. “Sunfair Sundown” has a bit of a poppier, quicker beat. On this cut she sings of a blank slate with which she can restart. “What you put in the ground comes around/ When you don’t really know what you’re missing at all,” she sings, her Australian accent making its most prominent appearance.

She concludes Things Take Time, Take Time with “Oh The Night,” which also maintains a steady pace despite her singing about the ever-changing culture of show businesses. Courtney Barnett admits that she takes her time with things, telling us one final time that’s the mindset with which we should all approach life.

Follow Domenic Strazzabosco at Twitter.com/domenicstrazz and Instagram.com/domenicstrazz.