I’m back at it 🙂 . 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 several years later and I’ve finished my 4th 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 around people than usual the week before. It all makes sense 🙂 .
I also realized last year that recording what I do all day has the accidental benefit of also showing how much I sleep I get (aka when there’s no activity logged on my calendar I’m asleep). 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 little time and the benefits far exceed the time spent, so I’m planning to keep doing it until that balance shifts 🙂 . These records also allow me to do something fun: Compare my third year of retirement to my fourth! I have actual data to show what I did more of, less of and generally what changed in how I spent my time.
- Here’s What Retirees Do All Day: Year 1
- Here’s What Retirees Do All Day: Year 2
- I Recorded What I Did Every Hour For 3 Years Of Retirement: Here’s What Retirees Do All Day!
So let’s see what’s changed! In Year 3 of retirement, here is how I spent my time in order of most time spent:
- Reading
- Socializing
- Traveling
- Watching Films
- Running
- Being Outside/Walking (Exploring, Birdwatching)
- Writing
- Napping
- Listening (Music, Podcasts)
- Spanish Learning
Below is what that list looks like for Year 4 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)
- Video Gaming⬆️
- Writing
- Watching Films⬇️
- Running⬆️
- Yoga⬆️
- Meditation⬆️
- Napping⬇️
And here’s an example of what a week of tracking looks like and how I track my time with color coding in Google Calendar:
A Monthly Focus
The above list was difficult to put together accurately and it took me a second to realize 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 during each of the last 12 months:
October 2023
Location: New Zealand🇳🇿
Focus: Traveling, Reading
November 2023
Location: Puerto Vallarta, México🇲🇽
Focus: Reading, Writing
December 2023
Location: NY State
Focus: Socializing, Running
January 2024
Location: NY State
Focus: Socializing, Video Gaming, Reading
February
Location: San José, Costa Rica🇨🇷
Focus: Yoga, Reading, Video Gaming, Running
March
Location: San José, Costa Rica🇨🇷
Focus: Yoga, Reading, Video Gaming, Weight Lifting
April
Location: Texas, California, Nevada and Arizona
Focus: Traveling, Socializing
May
Location: Arizona
Focus: Socializing, Video Gaming, Running
June
Location: NY State
Focus: Socializing, Video Gaming
July
Location: Montréal, Canada🇨🇦
Focus: Meditation, Video Gaming
August
Location: Montréal, Canada🇨🇦
Focus: Meditation, Socializing
September
Location: New Hampshire and then Iceland🇮🇸
Focus: Writing, Traveling
What Increased?
Now let’s talk about what increased this year.
Yoga
Yoga is definitely my biggest new hobby this year. I started getting into it at the beginning of the year in Costa Rica to help with tight calves during running, and it completely cleared those up.
I also enjoyed myself so much and found such fast improvement to my flexibility and strength that I kept doing it. It’s a great quick workout if I need to de-stress and get my heart pumping, but I don’t want to go for a run. Wins all around!
To this day I do yoga at least after every run and also when my muscles feel stiff. I’m in love 🙂 . These are my go to, quick yoga routines:
Besides flexibility and lack of tight muscles, I’ve also noticed that my knees are tough now 🙂 . I used to need a plush rug to do yoga on or my knees would protest.
When my Airbnb didn’t have that available, I used my Travel Towel for cushion and that worked well. But it’s no longer necessary! I can do yoga on a hard linoleum floor with no complaints from my knees. They’re badasses now 😉 .
I’m excited to continue my yoga going forward to help my running and just generally to feel better in my body. I’m glad I stumbled upon some great intro routines that weren’t too intimidating and let me see the possible benefits of this new exercise.
Meditation
I stumbled back into meditation this year. I tried it in the past and never felt like I was making progress so I gave up. However, I don’t know what changed this time besides me being retired (and maybe having more patience and being more present in general as a result 😉 ), but I saw a difference in my thoughts after the first meditation session this year.
So I kept doing it and for a while, I was doing daily meditations. My busy travel life got in the way and I focused on other things so meditation dropped from daily to “most days,” which I’m happy about.
I’ve been using Insight Timer for guided meditations and their titular timer. I did some research and found them to be the best app for me and I’ve loved using them for the past few months.
Running
Oh 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 fair 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
- Celebrating 3 Years Of Running: My Progress and Revelations
I have been steadily increasing my pace this year and also increased my distance substantially. However, I did have a few setbacks this year with falling while running in Costa Rica and having to wait for my knees to heal so I could walk comfortably let alone run.
Then I got a little too excited when I was back at it because I hurt one of my knees by doubling my distance suddenly. Apparently I’m only supposed to increase distance 10% a week…not 100%. My bad 🙂 .
So I rested my knee and once it was feeling 100%, I started running again. I’ll be more careful next time. Overall though I’m still loving this hobby, but I guess I can’t just do any old thing now that I’m 35. These old bones need rest I guess 😉 .
Video Gaming
I’m finally fulfilling my retirement dream of playing more video games 😉 ! I meant to do this last year, but accidentally read 250 books instead. Oops! Now it’s on though! I’m reading less and gaming more – just like my Mom always wanted for me 😉 .
I’ve also been getting more into the gaming community online (the nice part of it 🙂 ). I watch a fair bit of YouTube and started watching SimsTubers this year, which has been really cool.
I usually think of Sims as kind of an insular thing. I play alone and talk about it with my close group of friends if something wild happens, but that’s it.
Now though I have a whole online community to talk to and it’s been really interesting. I’ve learned a lot of new things, felt like a part of something and have even started watching and interacting with some of those SimTubers on Twitch livestreams and Discord, which made it feel like a real community talking in realtime.
All that to say, a more robust version of the below posts is coming for 2024:
Socializing
I continue to see family and friends way more in retirement when I can follow them to wherever they are than I did while working. I can also obviously spend more time with them now that I don’t answer to a PTO form.
However, another social focus for myself this year has been 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:
- Puerto Vallarta, México🇲🇽
- Austin, TX
- Sacramento, CA
- Phoenix, AZ
- Montréal, Canada🇨🇦
It’s always so amazing to meet y’all, put a face to a username and just be reminded that there are actual people reading this blog instead of numbers on a screen.
What Decreased?
Watching Films
So far I’ve watched 65 movies this year, which is about 1/2 as many as I did in 2023 according to my Letterboxd. I love film and I seriously thought I would watch more in retirement.
Instead, I’ve seen a healthy spike from when I was working, but a smaller one that I expected. It looks like video games might be eating into that this year 😉 , but it’s all good. I have been watching more YouTube videos instead of movies so maybe that’s where my watch-time went.
Napping
My napping regime has fallen by the wayside! Woe is me 🙂 . At one point, I had a standing 20 minute nap around 2pm, but as the year progressed I got too busy 😉 . I still have a nap here and there, but it’s on a random schedule and is basically as needed. I guess that’s fine, but one day I will get back to napping like a baby!
Conclusion
So that’s what I’ve been up to in my fourth year of retirement! I’m still finding it interesting to track my activities over time and see how my focus changes year to year and month to month. 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?
If you’re interested in a more in-depth look at what I’ve been up to in Retirement Year 4, here are my monthly retirement recaps from the past year:
- The Month Of New Zealand: October 2023
- The Month Of Puerto Vallarta: November 2023
- The Month Of Warmth: December 2023
- The Month Of Family: January 2024 Recap
- The Month Of Costa Rica: February 2024 Recap
- The Month Of San José: March 2024 Recap
- The Month Of The Solar Eclipse: April 2024 Recap
- The Month Of Arizona: May 2024 Recap
- The Month Of Upstate NY: June 2024 Recap
- The Month Of Montréal: July 2024 Recap
- The Month Of Canada: August 2024 Recap
- The Month Of Iceland: September 2024 Recap
Hey Purple!
Can you describe how you are actually tracking your time?
I’d like to do something similiar, but I don’t want the act if tracking to take up too much mental space.
Thanks!
Morgan
Hi Morgan – The Google Calendar screenshot I show in the post is how I track my time. The color coding helps me see what’s happened at a glance and it’s easy to track on my phone or computer during the day. It also doesn’t give me flashbacks to tracking time in a spreadsheet like when I was still working 🙂 . I hope that helps.
So cool, I love tracking things but not sure if I will go that full tracking route yet, maybe in the future but great idea in any case. Meditation and Yoga/Stretching is something I got to take more seriously. Thanks for continuing to post Purple!!
You do you 🙂 . I never imagined I would accidentally keep up this level of tracking for years, but it just kind of happened and I find it really helpful so I’ll keep doing it until it’s not fun anymore 🙂 . Meditation and yoga is sweet and doesn’t take a lot of time (like 5 minutes each a day) – you can do it! Thank you for reading!
It’s excellent that you have this kind of data to hand and don’t find it a chore to log what you do. I’m not doing anything like this during my travels, absolutely cannot be arsed XD I need to stretch and meditate, you’re an inspiration. Thank you for the reminder!
Haha no worries – I’m a bit of a weirdo who loves trackings things 🙂 . And thank you! Stretching and meditation rocks – you’ve got this!
This is cool to see! Even when I went on a sabbatical, I still found that having some structure worked best for me. I was scheduling stuff, but they were mostly things that I myself chose and enjoyed 🙂
That’s awesome! I’m kind of the opposite. I love looking at an empty calendar at the beginning of a week (and then I fill in after the fact what I actually did). I do love looking at my filled in calendar and just seeing things that make me happy and keep me healthy 🙂 .
I love all this! Can I ask how you report on what you spent time on at the end of the year – I use Google Calendar so can see how you track the time in the first place, but how do you add it up later?
I am about to quit my job (early December) to take a break from working, for 6 months to a year, and am excited to see what I do with my time! I’m planning lots of gardening, reading, exercising, hobbies like painting, and DIY / decorating on our house, I cannot wait! You’ve been a big inspiration especially around doing what you want and makes you happy, vs feeling the need to be ‘productive’ with your spare time and retirement.
I am wondering the same thing! Purple, how do you tally up this data?
Thanks! I was originally going to make a full data set with exact number of hours per activity and analyze it that way, but after starting that spreadsheet I got bored 🙂 and then 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 per month.
So I looked at what I did most per month to make that monthly list and have it inform the overall list for the year. It’s less scientific than I originally intended, but still pretty accurate.
Congratulations on your upcoming break! That sounds like a lovely time. I’m glad I could help keep the productivity propaganda at bay 😉 .
I used to have to track my time when I was working, so it could be billed to the right project codes. I don’t miss that, I’m glad I don’t have to fill out a timesheet in retirement.
On the other hand, I can see how it’s useful for personal improvement. Just like tracking my spending made it easy to see where I was and wasn’t getting good value for money, maybe tracking my time a little more closely would give me motivation to waste less time on social media and spend more time on stuff like reading and exercise.
Yeah I used to do that too. It sucked 🙂 . For some reason putting these things on a colorful calendar after the fact doesn’t feel like doing work timesheets to me – and maybe for that reason, it’s just for my information instead of billing a client. And that’s a great link to personal finance – nice!
Thank you for this! I’ve found your posts to be incredibly helpful as I transitioned into CoastFIRE life this past summer (the week before my 34th birthday). As a woman, there are few examples of what retired life can look like without kids and traveling full time with no home base, so I really appreciate you, your writings, and your example. THANK YOU!
Oh wow – I’m so happy to hear that!!! And congratulations on CoastFIRE!!!
In the past year, I focused way too much on working! Shudder.
I’m looking forward to being a retiree instead. 😀
Haha – sounds like a plan to me!