Here we are again 🙂 . Two years ago 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 two years later, completing my 3rd year of retirement. I love that I can look at this information to see patterns and explanations for how I might be feeling physically and emotionally. For example, if I felt the urge to curl up and read for 8 hours straight, I could look back and see that I spent a lot more time than usual around people the week before. It all makes sense 🙂 .
I didn’t realize until this year, but recording what I do all day also has the accidental benefit of recording how much I sleep (aka when there’s no activity logged on my calendar). So I have that information as well if I’m wondering why I want more naps lately for example 😉 .
I find recording what I do in a day takes very little time and the benefits far exceed the time spent, so I think I’ll keep doing it until that balance shifts 🙂 . This type of recording also allows me to do something fun: compare my second year of retirement to my third! I have actual data to show what I did more of, less of and generally what changed in how I spent my time.
So let’s see what’s changed! In Year 2 of retirement, here is how I spent my time in order of most time spent:
- Socializing
- Spanish Learning
- Reading
- Being Outside/Walking (Exploring, Birdwatching)
- Running
- Writing
- Traveling
- Napping
- Listening (Music, Podcasts)
- Watching Films
And below is what that list looks like for Year 3 of retirement. I’ve added increase and decrease arrows to show what I spent more or less time doing this year compared to last year:
- Reading⬆️
- Socializing⬆️
- Traveling⬆️
- Being Outside/Walking (Exploring, Birdwatching)
- Writing
- Watching Films⬆️
- Running⬆️
- Listening⬇️ (Music, Podcasts)
- Napping
- Spanish Learning⬇️
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 😉 ).
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 2023:
January
Location: Upstate NY & Boston, MA
Focus: Socializing
February
Location: New Hampshire
Focus: Reading, Running
March
Location: New Hampshire
Focus: Reading, Running
April
Location: Sacramento, CA
Focus: Traveling
May
Location: Seattle, WA
Focus: Socializing, Reading
June
Location: Chicago, IL
Focus: Socializing, Watching Films
July
Location: Montréal, Canada
Focus: Reading, Running
August
Location: Troy, NY
Focus: Socializing, Writing
September
Location: NYC, Singapore, Australia & New Zealand
Focus: Traveling
What Increased?
Now let’s talk about what increased this year.
Reading
The number of books I read exploded this year. I thought my record last year of 100 books read would be my record forever, but I blew past that earlier this year and am currently sitting at 230 books read with 6 weeks left of 2023.
I’m very curious to see what my final number will be at the end of the year since the cold winter months are when I most enjoy curling up with a blanket, tea and a good book. Anyway, I track and rate all the books I read on Goodreads here if you’re curious about that.
After reading 100 books in 2022 I never could have imagined that I'd surpass that number and yet here we are in May 2023🤷🏾♀️. I doubt I'll have as much time to read given all the exploring I plan to do in the second half of 2023, but let's see what happens😜📚🌍! pic.twitter.com/bV0MjuhZ2n
— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) May 15, 2023
Socializing
I of course love seeing family and friends when I travel, but a big focus this year was actually socializing with y’all! Blog readers have been reaching out when they see I’ll be in their city and as a result I met up with people in the below cities:
- Boston, MA
- New Hampshire
- Sacramento, CA
- Seattle, WA
- Chicago, IL
- Montréal, Canada🇨🇦
- Troy, NY
- Singapore🇸🇬
- Sydney, Australia🇦🇺
- Auckland, New Zealand🇳🇿
It’s beyond cool to meet y’all and put a face to a username and just be reminded that there are actual people reading this blog instead of numbers spiking on a screen. Meeting y’all in person has been a highlight of this year of retirement for me and I’m excited to continue the trend.
Traveling
I’ve been spending more time planning and researching the new countries and cities I’ll be visiting as well as activities I definitely want to do. I’ve also received some recommendations from y’all (thanks so much!!) and like to plan my routes around those if possible.
I add all the recommendations I receive to my Google Maps with a “Want To Go” green flag and a note that includes any specific meal suggestions I received. So if I’m walking a random route, and see on my map that someone has recommended something on that route I can stop by. So spontaneous 😉 .
Watching Films
So I’ve always loved movies, but this year they’ve continued to be more of a focus. In addition to my Weekly Movie Night with my college friends, I’ve also been enjoying watching Bad Movies with a friend who lives in Seattle. I’ve also loved watching films and shows with the friends and family we’ve seen this year.
As of this writing, I’ve watched 105 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!
Running
Ah running – my very own enemies to lovers story 🙂 . I spoke about my running journey in the below posts but overall, getting ready to run, running, stretching and the required cool down and post-run shower takes up a bit of my time.
- From Hate To Love: How I Became A Runner
- Celebrating 1 Year Of Running: My Progress and Revelations
- Celebrating 2 Years Of Running: My Progress and Revelations
Running in different countries and cities around the world has also been an unexpected benefit to my life. It’s cool to run different routes in different temperatures, humidity levels and elevations. Next stop, the Olympics am I right 😉 ?
What Decreased?
Spanish
Oops 🙂 . After learning Spanish in 2022 I deliberately decreased the over 40 hours a month I was devoting to learning that language. I also lived in the Francophone part of Montréal and found myself trying to brush off the part of my brain that learned a little high school French (unsuccessfully 🙂 ).
However, I started ramping up my learning once again in advance of going to México in my 4th year of retirement. That will be included in next year’s update, but as a spoiler: I definitely got my hours in while living in Puerto Vallarta and luckily it didn’t seem I lost any of my abilities. I guess even a little practice instead of many hours kept me fresh.
Listening
My time spent listening to podcasts continues to decrease unfortunately. I basically only listen to them now when I’m getting a dental cleaning or while on a train. I guess this is another indication that I don’t commute anymore – used to blow through podcasts and be eagerly awaiting my favs updating, but now I have more than I can keep up with. Woe is me 🙂 .
As for the other aspect of “listening” – I continue to listen to new music all the time. Spotify’s Discover Weekly and Release Radar are still weekly traditions for me. However, I’ve found myself not listening to music constantly these days. Sometimes I’m concentrating on birdsongs or just relaxing with my thoughts at the pool. It’s a hard life 😉 .
Conclusion
So that’s what I’ve been up to in my third year of retirement! I’m still finding it interesting to track my activities over time and see how my focus changes 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 in the last year?
Hi Purple, I have also recently retired and I keep a diary. It helps me to think, and to look back on how I spent my time. I also use it as a tool to manage my emotions and to combat feeling guilty about being retired early. I don’t know why I should feel guilty but I do. The diary is a means to look back and understand how busy I have been. I think you have to teach yourself that it’s ok to have leisure time, (reading, walking, movies etc)
Did you ever have secret guilty feelings ?
Hi Jon – That diary is a great idea. I’ve never had guilty feelings because I worked through that productivity propaganda in my mind before retiring, but I can definitely see how that would seep in.
I like the Google calendar tracking, do you have a means to sort through the data to see what’s trending or do you manually glance at a week and input the info onto Google sheets to post / analyze?
You’ve encouraged me to use more Google calendar but since I’m still working lol, I use it more to delete and check off things to feel accomplished.
Keep up the great work! Look forward to the end of year number updates 👍
I was originally going to have a full data set with exact times and analyze it that way, but after starting it I realized that just looking at the color coding on my calendar made it pretty obvious what had increased, decreased and taken most of my time. So it’s less scientific than I originally intended, but still pretty accurate 🙂 . And thank you!
So great to meet you! Love this post and it’s so interesting. I wonder if I kept a journal of my time now if it would be inspiring or depressing. Thanks for keeping this blog rolling! Anna
It was great to meet you too! I’m glad you liked the post. If I took stock of my time while working it would just be working and recovering from work (by rewatching a show I’ve seen a million times). But that might have motivated me to save more. I’m not sure 🙂 .
This is a lot of data and kudos to you for keeping it up!
I don’t track my time like this at all. Even so, I can tell you with absolute certainty that my focus this year has been work i.e. Youtube, because that’s what I spend most of my work day consuming instead of working.
The less flippant answer is: self-defence classes, therapy, and gaming. I upped the time devoted to each and they’ve paid off in different ways 🙂
Thank you! And those sound like wonderful ways to spend your time 🙂 .
I love these posts Purple! I’d love to know how you do the remote movie nights with your college friends. Been wondering for a while if you have any tech tips for that?
How do you signal each other if you want to say something during the movie and get them to pause? 😅
My free time revolves heavily around gardening in the summer. In the winter, I’ve picked up reading again (thanks for the library inspiration!) and go to the gym more than in the summer. Also I travel more during winter (towards warmer climates), because I don’t want to be away from my garden for too long in the summer. Funny how I’ve adapted to the seasons 🙂
I’m so glad you’re enjoying them 🙂 ! As for tech tips: We use Zoom with the computer right in front of us. I use headphones to watch the movie on the same computer usually and their TVs are far enough away that we don’t have audio feedback so we just keep ourselves unmuted and talk throughout haha. I do keep subtitles on so I can pay attention to the movie while they’re talking though, which is not something I have on when I’m watching a film normally.
I love that your time changes with the seasons 🙂 . You’ve inspired me to see if mine does the same. I’ll see if I can find a pattern in 2024!
Lol you’re hilarious and also seriously obsessive! I may need some more accountability in my own life…
Lol thank you 🙂 ? I think I’ve mostly heard the term neurotic, which is a trait that surprisingly served me well during my career 😉 . If you want some more accountability, I’m still sending out my every Wednesday reminders on Twitter in case that would help.
230 books, wow! I think the most I’ve ever read in a year was like 50.
I don’t track my time in this much detail, although I do try to keep track of the books I’ve read, the number of steps and workouts I get in, and a few other things. It motivates me, because I don’t like feeling like I’m “falling behind” even if it’s a completely self-imposed standard.
On the other hand, I don’t want to feel like I’m pressuring myself to be productive. I’m retired, dammit. Maybe I need to track how much time I spend relaxing and doing nothing in particular. 🙂
Those sound like awesome things to track. I do find it helpful to know how much time I spend on the opposite (doing nothing) because often I realized I haven’t been doing enough nothing and need to calm down a bit 🙂 .