All right, that's it. I need to get serious about this retirement thing. No more goofing off all day. I really need to treat this more like a full-time job.
Even before I read this post, I was beginning to think, enough is enough. I've got to start accomplishing something from my retirement to do list. At first, I agreed with supportive commenters' advice to cut myself some slack. But this is getting embarrassing, it's been over eight months, and I haven't really made much headway.
And my house is kind of a mess and so is my yard.
So I decided to treat this more like a job. I have been very good about getting in my hour of exercise every day, just like before I retired. Now, I've decided that I have to get in one our of housework or gardening each day, too. Every day.
The marathon cleaning and gardening sessions that resulted from only doing them once every week or so made me dread doing them. So now, one hour. That's it. My first day of this new regime resulted in two hours of cleaning, I got on a roll. I accomplished only 45 minutes of gardening the next day, since I had no more room for clippings in the garbage can. New rule: In the garden, it's one hour or one can, whichever comes first.
It's ony been four days, but since I've changed to this approach, something wonderful is happening. I feel GOOD ABOUT MYSELF every day! Just from the one hour of productive endeavor.
When the rains set in, I think I'll use that gardening hour to get in one hour of progress on an item on that to-do list. Perhaps before this first year is up, I will actually accomplish the one task I intended to do the very first day, clean out the closet of all my work clothes.
What about your one hour massage each day for your loving and adoring husband?
Posted by: retiredhubbie | November 16, 2008 at 09:37 PM
Oh Syd, now you're really putting the pressure on. As much as I know that if I don't have something that feels "work-like" ... meaning somehow productive ... I want to hold off on facing that to-do list. Maybe you're setting a good example for me; give it 8 months. Right now, barely a month into retirement I'm mostly feeling overwhelmed and truly resistant to taking anything on. Mind you, I've had to replace a car that decided to finally "die", a furnace that thought stopping just on the day of our first major snowfall, and having a kitchen cupboard literally fall off the wall ... all in the past 48 hours. I like the 1-hour a day idea though and might ease into that.
Posted by: Sylvia B | November 21, 2008 at 03:18 AM