This weird experiment continues 🙂 . Last year I mentioned that I accidentally recorded everything I did in 1 hour increments for my whole first year of retirement. Originally this was because I was curious to see what I got up to with unlimited time, and later I found it so useful that I just kept doing it.
And here we are another year later. I love that I can look back at this data to see patterns and explanations for things in my life. For example, if I was starving for introvert time and wondered why, I could look and see that I spent WAY more time than usual around people the week before.
Or if I wondered why I was sleeping more than usual, I would look and see “oh yeah – I went on several road trips and took care of a two year old last week. Makes sense.” I find recording what I do in a day takes very little time and its benefits far outpace the time spent, so I think I’ll keep doing it until that balance shifts 🙂 .
This type of recording also allowed me to do something fun: compare my first year of retirement to my second! I have actual data to show what I did more of, less of and generally what changed in how I spent my time.
In Year 1 of retirement, here is how I spent my time in order of most time spent:
- Reading
- Listening (Music, Podcasts)
- Socializing
- Being Outside (Birdwatching, Exploring Nature)
- Walking
- Writing
- Traveling
- Napping
And here is what that list looks like for Year 2 of retirement:
- Socializing⬆️
- Spanish Learning🆕
- Reading⬇️
- Being Outside/Walking (Exploring, Birdwatching)
- Running🆕
- Writing
- Traveling
- Napping⬆️
- Listening⬇️ (Music, Podcasts)
- Watching Films🆕
A Monthly Focus
The above list was difficult to put together accurately and I realized why: my focus changes month to month depending on where I am, what I’m doing and any upcoming deadlines I have (self imposed or otherwise 😉 ). For example, my main focus this fall was Spanish since my ‘deadline’ for learning it (my trip to Argentina) was fast approaching.
So I thought it might be helpful to show what my focus was each month of this year to get more of a full picture. Here are the top things I focused on each month of 2022:
January
Location: Albany, NY
Focus: Reading, Spanish
February
Location: Phuket, Thailand
Focus: Explore Thailand, Running
March
Location: New York State
Focus: Reading
April
Location: Mérida, México
Focus: Spanish (Classes) , Explore México
May
Location: Mérida, México
Focus: Spanish (Classes), Explore México
June
Location: Phoenix, AZ & Seattle, WA
Focus: Socializing, Spanish
July
Location: Seattle, WA
Focus: Seattle Exploration, Socializing
August
Location: New Hampshire
Focus: Running (almost daily), Spanish, Beach Exploration
September
Location: Maine
Focus: Spanish, Reading, Socializing
What Increased?
Now let’s talk about what increased this year. Let’s start with the new additions to this list:
Spanish Learning
It seems that becoming fluent in Spanish takes about 400-450 hours, which is about 8 hours per week if I want to reach my goal of going from 0% to fluent in 2022. Overall, that statistic has helped me to plan my supplemental Spanish learning outside of the classes I’ve taken. After taking 4 hours per day of class in México, I decided to watch at least 2 films in Spanish (without subtitles) per week and do a Duolingo Story every day to increase my reading comprehension in addition to my audio comprehension.
In addition, my phone is in Spanish so I’m practicing a little in that way at all times, I only text my Mom in Spanish (and we text constantly throughout the day), I speak with her weekly in Spanish and I chat with my friend in Argentina in Spanish. Overall this plan seems to be going well and allowing me to practice all forms of language learning.
Running
And yes running, my new obsession 🙂 . I spoke about my running journey in the below posts, but overall, getting ready to run, running and the required cool down and post-run shower takes up a bit of time.
I’ve also incorporated learning about nice running trails into my research of where we go next, which has been a fun addition.
Watching Films
So I’ve always loved film, but this year they’ve been more of a focus. I’m finally trying to work through the backlog of films and shows that I’ve always wanted to watch, but didn’t have the time or energy to do so while working. This is aided by time with my friends, which has also increased this year. In addition to my weekly virtual movie club, I’ve also been enjoying watching bad movies with a friend who lives in Seattle and watching films and shows with the friends and family we’ve been visiting this year. As of this writing I’ve watched 97 films (I rate them on Letterboxd if you’re interested in that kind of thing). I really like this trend and hope to keep it up!
As for old favorites, here is what increased:
Socializing
Understandably social interactions increased over the last year as people got vaccinated and we (kinda 🙂 ) got this pandemic under control. We started seeing more people and I left my house a lot more as a result. It’s been amazing seeing people after staying in our little bubble for so long. I’ve missed y’all 🙂 .
Naps
I took the most important lesson back from México with me: Siestas! I am now a Napping Queen and I love resting for a little bit in the afternoons. It seems to fit my natural rhythm especially if I accidentally get up super early because I’m excited about a bird call or watching the sunrise on a beach 🙂 .
What Decreased?
So what decreased? This is still a “top” list so even if things shifted around a bit, this is still a list of what I spent most of my time doing. However, Listening and Reading time decreased this year to make way for all the other things I was doing. I still listen to music almost all the time, but my time listening to podcasts has dropped dramatically. Now I usually only listen to them while on train rides to a new city and even then they’re in Spanish, so they’d fall under the “Spanish Learning” category. I guess my priorities shifted a bit 🙂 .
Reading also decreased since last year, which isn’t surprising since I had my 2021 goal to read a non-fiction book a week. This year I still read a lot – it is one of my all time favorite activities 🙂 and as of this writing, I’ve read 75 books in 2022 (I track and rate them on Goodreads here if you’re curious).
Conclusion
So that’s what I’ve been up to in my second year of retirement. I’m finding it really interesting to track my activities over time and see how my focus is changing year to year. It makes me curious what my focus will be a year in the future – I have no idea 🙂 . Anyway, I hope this was an interesting look into the question so many people ask me, “What do you do all day?” 🙂 .
What activities did you focus on during the last year?
Data queen! Your dedication in tracking this is really impressive. I know I wonder where the year has gone and what I did with it every so often – you have the literal data to tell you!
Activities I focused on in the past year: reading more, establishing a sustainable and consistent exercise routine, mindful eating and cooking, and consistent writing. Reading is a solid win, the others have been okayish. I tell myself we’re all works in progress.
Haha yeah I’m glad I accidentally adapted the habit. It’s great. And ooh those are some great things to focus on – happy to hear about the progress. We are all indeed works in progress.
Naps are fantastic, I look forward to the days when I can take a nap on a Wednesday at 2 PM. Looking forward to hearing about all your traveling in 2023, thanks for sharing!
Yaaas naps are the best! And I’m so glad you’re looking forward to it – me too haha.
This is so cool! How do you (or do you) account for time distracted by social media? Asking for a friend.
Thanks! I actually rarely am distracted by social media. I intentionally don’t scroll it, but if I accidentally do I put it on my calendar – I think that happened twice total in the last year. I write my social posts and stuff during “blog” time, but intentionally don’t let social media distract me.
Great focus! I get so distracted during the day (I’ve been writing this comment, throwing the ball for the dog and answering a client text all at the same time), It must be fabulous to concentrate on one thing at a time.
Thanks so much! And that totally makes sense – you’ve got a lot going on 🙂 . I hope you had a great rest of your day!
Ooohhh, I think I need to do something like this! I’m one year into my early retirement and am finding myself wasting way too much time.
If you’re willing to share, I would love to know more about some of the mechanics of your process on this: if you’re multitasking, do you choose one of the activities to log? Is your counting process to see what you’re spending the most time on at the end of the month / year manual, or do you have some sort of automation on that? Any other tips or tricks for someone interested in this?
Really? That’s interesting – what do you count as wasting time? Sadly my process is not very scientific – if it was it would take way more time 🙂 . If I’m multitasking I usually just track the main activity I’m doing. My process is manual and I go by month to see what the top 2-3 things I did that month were and extrapolate from there. If I was more ambitious/had more time 😉 I would make a spreadsheet to track each hour, but that make me cringe with how much it sounds like work time sheets. However, if you want to get more specific and that sounds of interest to you I think a spreadsheet is the way to go. Good luck!
Super helpful, thanks! By wasting time I just mean time that I’m not spending in accordance with my values and/or current priorities (e.g. scroller-coastering, putzing, letting the hours pass while not doing much, etc.). And yeah, I have no desire to go time-sheet specific, just something that helps me be a little more accountable to myself and my priorities. Appreciate you sharing your process….very helpful as I continue to think about how to make the most of my post-fi time!
I’m in my first year and feel similarly to you!
A fascinating read! Interesting to see how things have changed and how some others have not, from year 1 to year 2.
I love that your phone is in Spanish, and you text your mom in Spanish!
I’m currently in early stage of doing French in Duolingo and am just doing it as a hobby with no real end goal except to see if I can complete all 10 levels at some point.
Thank you so much! It was interesting for me to see as well – I hadn’t realized that my priorities had shifted. And yeah those little hourly Spanish interactions are really helpful 🙂 . I’m on 9/10 levels of Duolingo after 9 months in case that helps give an idea of how quickly you can go through it – I just test out of the checkpoints and do daily Stories though, I don’t use the app as it’s intended because I find it more helpful my way 🙂 . Anyway, you’ve got this!
I’m pretty sure this is my ideal life, especially if you add in studying Russian (my second language that I enjoy speaking and continuing to learn) and playing an instrument. 🙂 Seriously, this sounds glorious! I’m glad you’re having so much fun.
Not even joking, last night I had a dream that we met up and hung out and it was awesome, LOL. 🙂 It was made more awesome by the fact that in said dream, I was retired too!
You and me both 😉 . I like this dream and have decided it’s a premonition – let’s make it happen!
Hola! Leo tu blog desde Chile, así que me animé a escribirte en español para que puedas seguir practicando 🙂
Tengo una pregunta, ¿cuándo registras lo que hiciste durante el día? ¿Cada día registras en el calendario o lo haces una vez por semana? Gracias!
Jajaja – hola Leo y gracias! Yo registro cada día durante el día. Porque estoy jubilada no hacer muchas cosas en un día entonces es fácil 🙂 .