As anyone who is retired knows, time management in retirement is a struggle. It comes as a surprise that having “all the time in the world” does not actually help you get anything done. It’s ironic and annoying.
Recently, I discovered the work of Nir Eyal on Distraction and I’m trying his time management technique of timeboxing.* To me, it looks a lot like the day plans that I made when I was teaching. That’s one of the reasons I thought I’d try it as an experiment. Day plans allowed me to get a lot of teaching done in a week. Maybe they still have relevance for me in retirement?
Avoiding The Difficult Tasks
Suffering from distraction is a consistent issue for me. I often feel like I was busy all day but didn’t accomplish the things that I wanted to do. Sure, I’d make a list and I’d finished some of the things on my list, but many items were consistently left undone. The easy and pleasant things were regularly accomplished, but the tougher, important but unpleasant stuff, somehow never got done. This lead me to think that there had to be another way.
Planning Gives Everything Time To Happen
I fired up my Google Sheet day planner from when I was teaching, and curated a weekly plan for all the things that were on my to-do list. I tried to figure out how much time each item would take.
The Planning Fallacy**
Another of my challenges is that I consistently underestimate the time it takes me to complete something. It’s called the planning fallacy. Consequently, I end up scrambling to do all the things with not enough time left to do them. Taking this into consideration on my planner, I tried to be generous with the amount of time I gave each activity. I also added fun stuff, relaxing time and space for just puttering around.
I’m Collecting Data And Becoming Aware
The benefit of the timebox planner is that now I have an experiment set up. I try to follow the plan as much as possible. I have time slots for all the things that I intend to do. They are no longer just wishes on a list.
Disarming psychological reactance is easy.
Remind yourself, “I don’t have to follow this schedule; I get to follow this schedule. It’s my choice. I’m in charge.”
You run your own life. You are the boss. Your time belongs to you, and by timeboxing, you get to have maximum agency over how you spend it. – Nir Eyal
How’s it going?
If things go a wry, as they often do, I record any changes that occurred to my day, at the end of the day. Now, I’m starting to collect data for how long it actually takes me to complete these tasks, so that I can be more realistic in my estimates on next week’s planner. I can also see patterns. Activities that I thought would work at one time of the day, but actually fit better at another time. Best of all, I’m getting those important, but difficult, tasks done because they have a dedicated time to be done.
I’m using my day planner as a temporary tool. It’s a way for me to bring some self-awareness to my time management and curate my day. Who knew that even a retired teacher could use a day plan?
Would you try using a day planner? Comment below.
*https://www.nirandfar.com/timeboxing/
**https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_fallacy
Retired, And Now What? 
It is odd how hard it is to plan a time frame for some things. Maybe it’s an issue of not having them clearly defined?
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That could be. I’m wondering if using a day planner will help me to define them more clearly because I have choose a time slot for each thing but then I get to review it the following week.
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It might increase your ability to focus on what you really want to do
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Just starting my retirement, I think a lot about making the most of my time. I have a big list of retirement projects and want to make sure I get to as many of them as possible. I’ve always been a planner and a list maker in my working life, so I don’t think that will change. I already have a to do list for July. LOL
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Congratulations on your retirement! Having a big list of things that you’re excited about and the time to get started on them sounds wonderful.
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