If you’re working full-time, you probably have no idea what your ideal balance is between busy and downtime. Even if you’re lucky enough to be off for a month, that’s still not enough time to start tackling all the time-pressing things you need to get done plus some big things you want to do. The last time I had weeks of unstructured time off without work hovering overhead was summers when I was a kid.
Because I left full-time work in early summer 2024, I’ve now experienced four complete seasons in retirement in addition to part of that first summer. And that time has helped me somewhat better understand the rhythms of my new life in retirement.
I still have a lot more to learn. One year without full-time work doesn’t yet counterbalance decades with a salaried job! It’s going to take more than 15 months to feel as natural in retirement as I did in the workplace. I’m often still astonished at how much control I have over my own schedule. I can enjoy great weather on a weekday! And stay up late watching sports without worrying about morning meetings the next day! I don’t know if I’ll ever feel blase about that. But it’s starting to feel like I’ve finished the “brand-new retiree” phase of my life after work. It’s time to move onto the next stage, whatever that will be.
So, this seemed like a good time to mull what I’d like these next four seasons to look like – with the understanding that unexpected things happen in life, especially as we age. The Yiddish saying “Man plans, God laughs” is particularly appropriate as we get older. And, sadly, often not in a good way. Having a plan at this stage of life is less about the arrogance of certainty, and more about trying to be intentional so I make the most of whatever days I have left.
My first step has been thinking about what’s been most rewarding and enjoyable in early retirement so I can try to spend more available time on those things, as well as what things have been missing.
I love seeing family and friends! But if I’m not intentional about it, time goes by and it can be months between getting together with some people I enjoy seeing. Being a data nerd, I’ve started tracking when I see certain people and how long it’s been, so when I’ve got some empty space in my schedule, I don’t forget to check in with friends I haven’t talked to in awhile.
I enjoy freelance writing, but I also like having stretches of time where I don’t have a deadline hovering overhead. I don’t want to fill all my days with profession-adjacent activities, and I don’t want to stop doing anything that resembles what I did while working. I hope to still have story ideas that both excite me and that editors find compelling enough to pay for, with plenty of down time in between. One of the great things about freelancing in retirement is that I don’t have another deadline waiting for me as soon as I turn in an article.
I want to travel more! I have some sense of how often I enjoy getting away, because some of my jobs involved a fair amount of business travel. A trip every six to eight weeks usually felt great – it gave me enough time to come home, recover, regroup, and get ready for a new one. I don’t expect to have a vacation away that frequently now. But a goal of a getaway once every other month, even just a local overnight trip, may be doable (at least when the weather’s good).
I absolutely love writing code for fun computer projects and plan to keep doing that, especially when the weather’s bad and I’m inside more. I’m also having a blast learning about using generative AI.
I love learning, but I overdid it a bit at the start of my retirement trying to take online classes in American Sign Language, Portuguese, photo editing, and multiple tech skills all at once. It turns out I don’t want to structure my retirement schedule as if I’m back in college taking four classes a semester. I want to prioritize, and rotate some things in and out.
Do I want to volunteer? I put off that question during my first year of retirement, because I’ve been adamant about keeping my time as unstructured as possible. I intensely disliked a meeting-filled calendar at work, and crave control over my own schedule. And I definitely don’t want to have commitments that make it hard to go on trips for a week or two on the spur of the moment. One of the worst things about working was how difficult it was in some roles to take my vacation time, especially when it was up to me to find replacements for my editing shifts. I do not want any volunteer commitments that complicate going away on short notice, or even enjoying a gorgeous weather day on the spur of the moment. I need to think about how I might offer something useful in a flexible way.
There are also non-fun things I have to fit into my second year of retirement. I definitely need to make more progress on decluttering all the stuff I’ve collected in our home over many decades. And, health maintenance becomes more time-consuming as I get older, which means I need to spend more time on exercising and healthy eating.
But these are all compelling opportunities, not “problems.”
This isn’t to say that everything is wonderful in my life. Some bad things have happened, too, both in my personal life and the world. But none were because I stopped working. Retirement has been mostly great so far. I wonder now why I ever worried about missing work.
You can follow My Next Chapter by email newsletter or RSS feed. Blog content © Sharon Machlis.