How much down time do you have in a typical day?

If you are retired, how structured did you keep your life? That will probably be the hardest part for me, letting go of any time structure. Ever since Kindergarten, I’ve had a structured life - school, college, full-time work. College was in a way the least structured because classes weren’t everyday and not at the same time on other days. Do you still get up at the same time everyday, eat meals at the same time, etc. ?

I work full time (four days at home and one day in the office) and I manage to cram a lot of relaxing down time into my day. On the days I work from home, I have at least one hour in the morning where I will have a coffee and Pea, maybe watch the morning news or sit outside. I finish work at 5:30pm, so I usually start cooking dinner straight away. After eating and cleaning up, I have the rest of the night to myself, so from about 7:30pm until I go to bed around 11pm or midnight.

My favourite morning is the day my friend and I go for a big walk. We leave at 6:30am, do our 80 minute mountain walk, then go and get a coffee. By the time I get home to start work, I've been up and about for three hours. 



Me neither! I know people who feel guilty if they are not doing something productive, but not me!

Yes for many things. I get up about the same time, make and eat lunch at the same time. I have other little routines throughout the day. Some of these include DH, but many do not. Some things vary such as tomorrow morning I'm gardening so I'll work in the yard before my shower. I decide each week which days I'm going to the gym and plan other errands around that.

I have way less free time being retired than I imagined. My grandson moved in with me 2 years ago. He's driving now, so this school year will be much easier. It does mean I need to monitor what his schedule is and make sure he has decent meals.

My parents moved down here 1 year ago and into a care facility. There have been issues with both of them, requiring way more of my time that I ever imagined.

I am trying to find the balance in staying home when I can and making sure I get out with other adults who don't need something from me! It would be easy to just hole up at home.

I try to do the things I have to do in the morning, then do what I want in the afternoon.

I have found if I shower and get dressed immediately in the morning, I am much more productive.

I have about 95% free time generally. I enjoy every minute of it. There are times when I get a few things on my plate that are must dos, they just make me appreciate all my free time. I have all the regular home chores to do, but I do them on my schedule. If I feel like reading a book, I’ll dust tomorrow. LOL

How often do you just relax during the day and just craft or read or nap?
I rarely craft during the day during the warm months. It just tends to be something I think of as an "after dinner activity" that time of year. During the cold months, then I also craft on weekend days or snow days. My schedule allows me to craft during the day sometimes, but I got into the habit of crafting only on weekends and evenings early on, and it stuck, I guess.

Napping I only do if I feel I need it. And if I truly feel I need it, I'll fit it in anywhere I can clear a 2 hour block of time. If my available block is less than 2 hours, I feel stressed for some reason, and will just lie there awake most times.

I read at all different times, including when waiting in a car, or at a practice, or while having tea or a snack.

Do you schedule it into your day? I do have a checklist each day, and there are times when I add reading to my to-do list each day, and times when I do not. It depends on my reading mood at the time. I don't schedule crafting unless working on a particular goal, and as I said above, nap only when I feel I need it.

What does relaxing mean to you? Quite often relaxing means alone time to me. There are some exceptions---DH & I have tea together each afternoon, and our routine in that we watch a little something on YouTube during that time. It's almost always his choice. That's just how that tradition works. It's not like he demands it to be his choice. So whether or not I find it relaxing depends on what we're watching. We have a handful of choices we typically pick between. A few I find funny, a few relaxing, and a few that often result in an unexpected nap! So anyway, sometimes tea time is relaxing. Sometimes we also sit out on the porch and just enjoy the breeze and talk about house projects or nothing at al, which I also find relaxing.
But day to day, most of my relaxing is when I can be alone, because I find I cannot relax if I feel like someone is going to interrupt me at any point.
I will say that I think of time spent doing fun things with other people as generally separate from doing "relaxing" things, although in some cases there is some overlap.

Do you feel guilty when you aren’t constructively occupied? Nope. Sure, there are times when I have goals and something gets in the way of me working on them, and then I feel frustrated or agitated, but not guilty. But if I've done what I want to do for the day, or if I know there's still plenty of day left to do what's left on my list, then no, I don't feel guilty about doing "nothing".

Last year I was working/commuting around 50-70 hours a week between my full time job and my "business"/hobby job.
I had almost no down time and never cooked anything, cleaning was in spurts and rarely got done as it should be, I was constantly 100% busy.

I have mentioned that I went to a part-time role and scaled back the business to a much more manageable schedule, and now I have a LOT of down time on my days off. It's been lovely to sit and scroll the internet while catching up on my shows, getting projects done, making dinner and getting the shopping and planning done for that without having to use instacart and Uber Eats because I'm too tired or busy to do anything else.

BUT, I admit that I love being productive and staying busy. I love nothing more than to multitask (like, doing a Spanish lesson while on the treadmill, attending a zoom meeting while paying bills or doing my nails or building an art project, etc).

If I don't get at least two things from my weekly to-do list done per day I feel like the entire day was wasted, unless I've been sick or coming off a multi-day stretch of work. Several 12+ hour night shifts (which are 14.5 hours after driving) in a row is very draining the older I get!

I get up 30 min earlier than I have to so I can have about 30 minutes in my quiet house while everyone else is sleeping.

In the evenings I have an hour or two of down time too usually. I only have my youngest at home now and he’s a pretty chill, self-sufficient kid. He just turned 16 so he’s about to be even more self-sufficient.

This is me. My brain is my own worst enemy.

I work outside of the house. I also take care of everything in the household, including my minor children, helping my still at home adult children, and helping my elderly parent (who also lives here).

I never seem to have the house clean enough, or the chores done enough, so even when I have time off of paid work, there is more work to be done. 

And I only allow myself time to relax if I'm multitasking house tasks. Like right now I'm Peaing. But I also have laundry going, I'm cooking soup, writing a grocery list, and planning the meals for the next week. So my mind isn't really resting at all.

I think another part of it is that I'm always "on call" with my family. I get texts to go buy something, go do something, can I please...Please pick up this... etc all the time, every day. I have no privacy, and no time that is truly mine. 

I’m in the phase of life where my kid is pretty self sufficient when she’s home but she’s not yet old enough to drive, so I’m doing the role of chauffeur to get her where she needs to be which is multiple times a week. I work from home for DH so those tasks are somewhat scheduled around the weekly household things that also need to get done. I go to a chiropractor weekly in a city 20 minutes away, so I plan any shopping in that area for the same day when I’m already over there anyway to minimize drive time which I loathe. I end up trying to figure out what I can get done in the amount of time I have before I have to leave to go get DD from where ever she is and bring her to where ever she needs to be next.

I have a hard time starting something if I know I won’t also be able to finish it. I don’t like ongoing tasks that don’t have a definitive end point because I never know when I will be able to (or feel motivated to) pick something back up that’s only half done. I still have a lot of those UnFinishedObjects rattling around in my studio that have been in limbo for way too long, so I don’t want to start more things that might end up on that pile. These days I prefer baking projects, smaller sewing projects, HTV or sublimation projects which are all things I know I can start and finish over a few hours time.

The mornings after DD leaves for school and DH takes off for work are my best personal down time. The house is quiet, I can do some DuoLingo, watch YouTube sewing or cookie decorating videos or how to DIY a project I might be thinking about, and I usually use that time to clear my email in box, check in here, look at Facebook and Instagram notifications (because people don’t read and sometimes message me about custom orders for my business when those requests should go through my website), eat breakfast.

If I’ve had a particularly unsettled night, I sometimes take a morning nap in my chair for 30-60 minutes (I set a timer so it doesn’t go too long). I figure if I’m so tired that I’m falling asleep sitting up, I need the recharge and I don’t feel remotely guilty about it. I usually aim for doing something productive around 9:30ish. I’m typically the last person going to bed at night (and even after that, I’m restless and it takes forever to fall asleep) and I’m always the first one out of bed taking the dogs out in the morning so I get the least amount of sleep. According to my Apple Watch, I average about 5.5 hours of sleep even in the summer, and I really need at least 8 to feel functional. Sometimes I take an afternoon nap instead if exhaustion hits me then.

I have the most downtime when we’re at our lake cabin in the summer because when DH isn’t coming up with some project (move a wood pile, cut down a tree and split all the logs, work on landscaping, paint something, his list is endless) there is almost nothing for me to do there besides surf the internet, put together a jigsaw puzzle, bake the occasional pie or pan of brownies, watch something on tv, play video games or read a book. 

About 12 minutes a day. It really seems that way and I work long hours away from home. I do not cook or have family and D/H takes care of himself. Time suckers are house cleaning, laundry and animal care.