What do you do everyday when you are retired?
Ronnie over at As Time Goes By created a post where she talked about what do people who are retired do on a daily basis. It was an interesting read and got me thinking about what I do on a daily basis.
First, here is the list that from an article called 12 ways Retirees spend their time, which was published in 2016 by USN and written by Emily Brandon. Emily put the list in order of average duration per day (I have added the hours per week):
Sleep (10 to11 hours per day) (70 hours in a week)
Watching TV (4 hours a day) (28 hours in a week)
Home maintenance (2.5 hours a day) (17.5 hours a week)
Part-time work (1.5 hours a day) (10.5 hours a week)
Preparing/eating meals (1.5 hours a day) (10.5 hours a week)
Shopping (1 hour a day) (7 hours a week)
Volunteering (30 minutes a day) (3.5 hours a week)
Reading (1 hour a day) (7 hours a week)
Surfing the web (30 minutes a day) (3.5 hours a week)
Socializing (30 minutes a day) (3.5 hours a week)
Relaxing (45 minutes a day) 5.25 hours a week)
Exercising (15 minutes a day) (1.75 hours a week)
The reality is that the above is an estimate of activities and times based on what a person would do averaged over a week, which I included in the list above.
So, I took a look at my activities for the week and here is what I do over a week.
I do sleep but only between 8 and 9 hours asleep or (72 hours in a week).
I watched TV for about 30 hours for the week.
I did about 2 hours of home maintenance unless you count housework, which would add about 7 more hours to the list. Preparing, eating and cleaning up after meals were about 11 hours.
My volunteer time took about 9 hours. This included preparing for the workshops, driving to the workshop, giving the workshop, and reporting on the workshop.
I read for about 9 hours this week, although some weeks I don’t read at all.
I spent about 11 hours Surfing the web looking for article ideas, connecting with my daughter in Australia, catching up on news and what my relatives and friends were doing via social media.
I spent 6 hours socializing.
My wife told me that I spend about 8 hours relaxing.
I went shopping for 3 hours.
This left me with 0 hours to exercise this week. Time flies when you are having fun, but it was an interesting experiment to track (although) not in great detail, how time is spent.
I know activity levels differ depending on health and although there is nothing wrong with the above list, I don't see hobbies, passions, curiosity, sports, travel, learning etc. on it. I think I said at one point when I retire, I will be able to do all this stuff because I don’t have time now. Being retired now means that I have to make time for all the stuff I didn't have time for when we were working, but I am finding it harder and harder to find the time because I am so busy. What about you, are you so busy in retirement that you are finding it difficult to do the things you always wanted to complete or try?

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Helena Jansen van Vuuren
6 years ago#1