Want More Joy in Retirement? Look at How You Spent Last Week
Early in September, I made a list of what I most want my retirement to be built around: friends, art, nature, writing, family, and health. Then I looked at my calendar, and noticed coaching tasks had taken over most of my week. I coach women through exactly this, so I should know better.
Maybe you can rattle off a list like mine, and your weeks don’t match it either. Or maybe someone has told you to pay attention to what brings you joy, and when you try, you come up empty. Women write to me about both.
If you’re still working, that gap might show up when someone asks what you’ll do with yourself after you retire. If you’re already retired, it might show up while you’re sitting with your coffee, scrolling your phone, wondering what to do with the day.
I think the answers are easier to find in a week you’ve already lived than by staring into the future. A real week can show you two things: what actually brings you joy and what keeps it from fitting into your days.
What Was Crowding Out My List
I retired from a university last year and chose to make coaching women through the retirement transition part of my own retirement plan. I love it. The conversations with my clients are on my list of things that matter most.
What crowded out everything else I hoped to do in retirement, like taking art classes and meeting up with friends, was the endless tinkering around those conversations. I’d rewrite a newsletter for the 20th time, tweak a blog post, fiddle with my website, polish a free guide, and then find something else to improve.
The day I made my list, I also wrote this in my journal about my coaching business: “I’m constantly finding ways to improve and it’s exhausting me.” Coaching tasks were taking far more of my retirement than I ever meant to give them.
What One Good Day Showed Me
A couple of days after I wrote that list, I had a day I loved. I wrote it down too, so I could pinpoint what I called “the recipe.” In order, it went like this:
- Coffee with my cat Rosie on my lap and my husband sitting nearby.
- A walk and breakfast with a friend.
- Knitting, then some art.
- Writing my weekly newsletter, my one coaching task of the day.
- Pruning my tomato plants.
- A bath and two episodes of Leanne, a very funny show on Netflix.
- Errands and dinner with my husband, then a late-night walk around our neighborhood.
Next to the newsletter, I wrote, “And only then did I write a newsletter. THIS IS SO IMPORTANT!!!” By the time I sat down to write it, I’d already had coffee with Rosie, a walk with a friend, and time for knitting and art. On most days it went the other way around: coaching tasks first, and the things I love squeezed in after, if at all.
Every ingredient in that day was already on my list. What the day showed me was the order. For me, when coaching tasks go in first, they take over the whole day. When the things I love go in first, coaching tasks stay in proportion.
That’s why I call it a recipe. The ingredients matter, and so does the order you add them in.
Writing down one real day taught me more than my list ever did. That’s the idea behind a short exercise I’ll give you below, and it’s also the third morning of a free email series I’ll tell you about at the end.
Your Answer Is in Your Last Week
For me, joy has real warmth to it. Researcher and author Brené Brown describes joy as “an intense feeling of deep spiritual connection, pleasure, and appreciation.” That’s close to what I mean.
“What brings me joy?” can be hard to answer in the abstract. “When did I feel that kind of joy last week, even for a few minutes?” is easier, because you were there. And if you already know what brings you joy, ask a second question: what took up the time you meant to spend on it?
Try This: Score Your Week
- List five to seven things you did last week, including the ones you chose and the ones you did out of obligation.
- Score each one from minus 5 to plus 5. A plus 5 is something that felt energizing, joyful, alive, the kind of thing that leaves you more connected to yourself. A minus 5 left you drained, tense, or wishing you’d said no.
- Look at your highest scores and ask what they have in common. Were you with people or on your own? Making something? Outside? Learning? That pattern can also point you toward something new worth trying.
- Then look at the order. What came first on your best days? Did anything take up more of the week than you meant to give it?
If you’re still working, score your whole week, including what you did outside of work, and you’ll start seeing what you’ll want more of while your retirement date is still ahead of you. If you’re already retired, score last week, even if it felt like not much happened. A phone call or a walk around the block belongs on the list too.
What I’m Doing About My Own Weeks
I’m finishing this article on vacation, which probably tells you something. Last night I worked on it in an Irish pub while my husband watched a football match. I’d give that a plus 3.5.
Writing something that might help another woman brings me real joy. The trouble comes when other parts of my life get crowded out.
I know what brings me joy. My challenge is making time for it.
My first week home is full of client sessions, which I’m glad about. And I’m intentionally blocking time on my calendar for the other parts of my life: art lessons, hiking, the gym, a new women’s group I joined, and time with friends.
Some nights I’ll make a little checklist to structure the next day. Yes, I need a checklist to make sure I have time for joy. I may not make one every day, but I will when I sense I’m losing the balance I want.
You don’t have to know yet what will bring you joy in retirement. You can start by noticing what already feels good in the life you’re living, and what came first on the days that felt best. I’m going to keep paying attention to my days and journaling about how they felt, so I keep learning how to make time for joy.
Retiring into Yourself
If this exercise gave you one useful clue, even a plus 4 you didn’t expect, Retiring into Yourself helps you keep going. It’s a free one-week email series for women close to retirement or newly retired who want to figure out what they want their days to look like.
Each morning brings a short message you can read in about four minutes with your coffee. It includes a quick story about me or a client, a reflection to try, and a question. Over the week you’ll look at what your job gives you besides a paycheck, find the parts of yourself that got crowded out, score a week the way you just did, and choose one small daily practice to come back to. Hit reply any morning, and I’ll write back.
Some of the plus scores women in the series have shared with me are wonderfully ordinary: lunch with a friend, a voice lesson, reviewing a friend’s memoir.
By the end, you’ll have a few concrete clues about what deserves more of your time, and where to start.
👉 Start the free Retiring into Yourself series.
Let’s Have a Conversation:
What does an ordinary week look like for you and are you satisfied with it? Do you ever feel you’re overly busy or not accomplishing anything? What’s one thing that scored a plus 4 or 5 for you last week? I’d love to hear in the comments.
