It’s hard for me to believe that I’ve been retired for half a year already. In some ways, the time has flown by. In other ways, those work-filled days feel like a l-o-n-g time ago.
One key insight I’ve discovered: The same things that made me happy when I was working still make me happy now.
In a lot of cases, they’re things I used to do off work hours: traveling, walking around a great city, chilling with my husband, seeing family and friends, running, reading a good book, sitting outside in good weather, enjoying nature . . . . And I’ve got more time for all that now.
In other instances, though, things that made me happy were in fact tasks I did at work. Writing. Coding. Figuring out how to answer challenging data questions. Helping to automate colleagues’ drudge work.
But it turns out I can do versions of most of those “work things” now, too -- and they can be just as satisfying. All I need to do is lower my need for external validation.
For example, I’m still writing! I find this blog very satisfying, even if its audience may only be in the dozens and not the tens of thousands or more I used to have. (Although I plan to ease up on the once-a-week posting schedule – I’m having less frequent new revelations about retirement than when I started.) I’m doing a little freelancing, on topics I find engaging and really want to share.
And, I’ve at least partially solved two of my own coding challenges.
One: While I was working, I created a Web page that automatically generated a searchable calendar of some local events from a few sources I could easily Web scrape. You can see the result at framinghamevents.com. I made the site for the general public, which that means there are a lot of things in there that don’t necessarily interest me, including library events for kids and teens.
Now that I’m retired, I decided I’d like a version just for myself, filtering out those kids and teens events as well as some others and adding in new sources. And yes, I included the Callahan Center now for us 55+ residents, although removing a lot (but not all) of events like card games and sewing groups that don’t interest me.
I also thought it would be fun to include a generative AI chatbot in my personalized calendar that could answer questions like “Tell me about dance classes this week” and “Are there any crafting events on Wednesday?” For now, the chatbot just looks ahead to the upcoming seven days and excludes the Y (I’m thinking of joining but not a member yet).
If you want to see my calendar, I put it online at https://smach.shinyapps.io/mycal/. Note: If you’re local and might actually want to use the information, make sure to click through to the original source! I’ve also included a couple of sites that are difficult to automatically scrape and so may be prone to error.
The other: I’ve got another prototype working based on an app I created several years ago that automatically downloads local government meeting agendas and minutes and makes them searchable, too. However, the search requires an exact match. For example, if you search for “hiking trails” but a document says “recreational trails”, it won’t match. In this era of generative AI, I wanted to see if I could use technology similar to what powers ChatGPT to answer questions about Framingham meeting minutes.
That turned out to be a more complicated problem than I’d hoped. But I finally got a working prototype up, which was very satisfying. It’s at https://search-framingham-meeting-minutes.streamlit.app/ if you want to take a peek. Caution: If you’re using this to find info you actually want to use, make sure to double-check the source documents. And read the FAQ.
Some other thoughts at my retirement half-year mark:
Being retired in good weather is more fun than when it’s cold and crappy out. Although that’s pretty much the case for everything. I naturally hibernate in winter; but at least before the pandemic while I was working, I’d often go to at least one conference between January and March. Last year I took a winter vacation. This year we stayed local, and there have been long stretches when I didn’t leave the house at all. If it’s possible, I think I should try to arrange for some winter season travel next year.
It’s nice having the time and space to take online classes, read, work on coding and crafting projects, and do more writing for myself.
I’ve said this before, but it’s still true: I don’t miss my professional personna as much as I thought I would. I still do miss it at times, but not nearly enough to want to work fulltime again.
I finally figured out how to kick the habit of constantly checking work email! All I had to do was . . . not have work email. Next up: Cut back on my social media, which is clearly not great for calmness, concentration, and overall mental health. And definitely limit my political news diet.
I’m somewhat better able to handle stress and unpleasantries now than when I was also dealing with work stress. I’m still not great at it, but a four-week meditation workshop on Friday afternoons is helping!
I really do have to start working on some projects around the house.
It’s still occasionally a pleasant surprise when I remember anew that I can (usually) stay up as late as I want on a “work night”, since I don’t have meetings the next morning. However, it’s less of a shock as I get used to this new rhythm of my current life phase.
I remain unclear on what I might want a longer term retirement life to look like, but that’s OK.
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