Commitment versus Freedom in Retirement

A friend dropped by for coffee yesterday and we talked about her husband's retirement. He really enjoyed his work and in his first year of retirement he took on a teaching project at a nearby university. She says one of his challenges in retirement is managing his time. He hates routine so just lets the days slip by doing whatever he feels like doing - that, of course, is how some people define retirement! However, as a deadline related to work approaches, he becomes a little stressed as he has to gear up to get the work done on time.

She is a very organized person and says that he really needs to establish a routine so that he doesn't fritter all his time away. We got into a discussion about the need to find some balance between making commitments in retirement and leaving our schedule wide open. Personality is a pretty important element in determining what this balance might look like. On the one hand, she likes her week to be well organized, and she has several fixed time commitments. This means that she uses her "free" time more efficiently since she knows her days are not totally open ended. At the end of the week she can clearly identify what she accomplished. On the other hand, he prefers open ended days and ends up being stressed out about locked in commitments that result in lots of last minute pressure to produce and perform. I suspect that at the end of the week, he is probably pretty comfortable with whatever he has done, regardless of how much or how little.

So what's it going to be for you? I struggle with this issue since I'm anti routine but also like to feel that I am accomplishing something every day. I suspect that for some people, it takes quite a long time to figure out just what the balance should be between making commitments, being organized and focused and yet leaving enough free time to be spontaneous. Bottom line: it really is a very personal issue. What works for one, won't necessarily work for the other. Advice: get a handle on this issue before you retire so that you can go through the transition, having taken into account your own personality traits.