Creating Structure Without the 9-to-5

Trade your corporate shoes for sandals and your desk for a deck chair. This is the Casual Mondays podcast with Kevin Donahue, sharing conversations about the highs, lows, and all of the in betweens and helping retirees enjoy their brightest days.

It's 10:47 on a Tuesday morning. You are still in your pajamas. You've been scrolling on your phone for how long? Twenty minutes? An hour?

You had plans today, vague plans. Something about organizing the garage, calling that friend, definitely going to the gym eventually. But here's the thing, there's no meeting at eleven. There's no deadline at noon. There's no boss wondering where you are.

So, you pour another cup of coffee. You open up your iPad, check your email, nothing urgent. Now, 11/23 and you think, I've been retired for months now. Why does every day basically feel like Saturday, but maybe without the satisfaction of having earned it? Welcome to the paradox of retirement.

You have finally have all the time in the world and somehow none of it feels like yours. I'm Kevin Donahue. This is the Casual Mondays podcast. For forty years, you resented your schedule. The alarm at six, the back to back meetings, commutes, constant pressure, what's next.

You dreamed of the day that you could just wake up without an alarm. When Monday always looked like Saturday. When nobody told you where to be or what to do. And then you retired. For the first few weeks, it was heaven.

You were sleeping in, doing whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted, pure freedom, Just fuzzy slippers all day. But somewhere around week six, something shifts. The days all start to blur together. Monday feels like Thursday, feels like Sunday. You accomplish less somehow despite having more time.

That little voice in your head that sometimes visits us starts whispering, Am I wasting this? Let me tell you about two people who represent the extremes that I've seen. First, there's my friend Tom, Mr. Structured Achiever. Tom retired from a career in operations management.

First thing he did, Tom built a daily schedule for retirement, right? Wake up at six, gym seven to eight, breakfast, projects, lunch, errands or appointments, creative time from two to four, dinner prep, evening routine. Within three months, Tom's wife sat him down. Tom, you retired from work, not from being human. You're running your retirement like a project.

Tom understandably felt lost, but without structure, I don't know what to do with myself. Is that you? What about Sarah, Ms. Flexible Explorer. Sarah retired from a creative director role.

Her philosophy was, I've had enough with schedules. I'm just going to go with the flow. No routine, no commitment, total spontaneity. Six months in, Sarah says to me, I'm busier than I've ever been, but I can't tell you what I'm actually accomplishing. Honestly, I feel aimless.

Here's what both Tom and Sarah discovered. Freedom without structure isn't freedom, it's chaos in disguise. Here's the flip side, structure without flexibility isn't structure. It's just a job without a paycheck. I looked into it and the research from Mayo Clinic backs this up.

Their study on healthy aging found that retirees with what they call, and I'm using my little air quotes here, moderate structure, which they defined as regular anchor activities plus some flexible blocks of time, reported higher life satisfaction and actually better health outcomes than those at either the Tom or Sarah extreme of things. We've talked about this before, but the University Michigan's research on retirement transitions found that the first ninety days of your retirement are critical because that's how you build the rhythm that becomes the trend, the pattern for your years to come. But, there's a challenge in all of this. Number one, nobody told us about that. Number two, nobody told us how to do this.

So we spend decades in this imposed structure, right? School, college, career. We never really learned to create our own structure and suddenly at 50 or 55 or 62, you're just supposed to figure it out. So, let's figure it out together, shall we? I've tried my best to kind of make this, to paraphrase the old expression, eating the elephant one bite at a time.

Let's break it down into simple steps. Just four pillars like a table, right? You have to have four legs, for stability, but the legs don't determine anything you put on top of the table, right? That's completely up to you. So, it's a bad metaphor, but stick with me.

Okay? Here we go. The four pillars. Number one, anchor commitments. Just like the Mayo study said, those are the non negotiable things that give your weeks some shape or form.

Number two, peak energy blocks. That's taking the time that you have always known you do your best work and holding it a little sacred. Number three, intentional white space. Oxymoron here. We want you to schedule nothing, right?

You're going to schedule not to schedule. If that's a thing. And it is, it's a thing. We just said it. Number four, evening closure.

Some ritual that ends your day with intention. We're going to walk through each one of these, but before we do, let's take a quick break and then dive back in. As always, today's episode, you'll find all of the links to our discussions, books, websites, studies in the show notes on your podcast app, as well as our homepage at casualmondayspodcast.com. Also, I would love to hear from you and get you involved in the show and our community. I love getting your voicemails.

If you want to send one, just go to casualmondayspodcast.com, click the little record a voicemail button. You can do it with your phone, with your tablet, with your computer. We love to hear your stories, your feedback, and your suggestions. And with that, here's a voicemail from Tiffany in Philadelphia.

Tiffany Hello, this is Tiffany from Philly. I listen to your podcast and although I'm not retired yet, I'm trying to plan for what comes next in a few years. I guess my question is, what would you say is the most important thing to prepare before retirement? I mean, the finances, to get yourself ready for retirement? Thanks.

Thank you, Tiffany. From my perspective, the most important thing to prepare for your retirement outside of finances is to understand what you're retiring to. We tend to spend decades dreaming about what we're retiring from without a lot of thought as to what we're retiring to. Retirement should be some of the best years of your life, but you have to plan ahead on how you want to spend them. What do you want to learn?

What do you want to accomplish? If you don't know these things about yourself before you go into retirement, you may find yourself drifting a bit when the day does come for you. So I would say the most important is to write down what you want from your retirement. You know, real concrete items and then start working towards what you're retiring to, not what you're retiring from. As a token of thanks for leaving a voicemail, we will send you a link for a lifetime premium code upgrade for my Retirement Success Graph app on iOS.

I have said it before, it's worth saying again, I wrote this app in my retirement era to transition from a spreadsheet that was getting a bit cumbersome to a true analyst level solution that I could use on my phone, my tablet, my desktop without having to surrender any of my privacy, any of my data, no uploads and without having to pay an annual subscription. The app will stress test your retirement plan using a hundred years of US economic and market data. It gives you a score for your plan and then gives simple suggestions for improvements. Retirement success graph is free on the Apple app store and Tiffany, we're going to give you a lifetime premium code worth a very healthy $5 so that you can use all of the upgraded features of the app and, to any of you leaving a voicemail on the website, we will send you a premium code as well. Lastly, if you haven't done so already, join our Casual Mondays club.

We're sending out links, stories, subscriber only information about eight times a year. Very easy to access. Casualmondayspodcast.com. Click on join the Casual Mondays club. All right.

That is it for housekeeping notes. Let's get back to our four pillars. Pillar number one, anchor commitments. These are the recurring activities that give every week shape. They're the tent post that everything else hangs on.

But here's the key, you choose them. They're not imposed by a boss or a schedule. They're the activities that you want because they serve your Ikegai, your health, or your relationships. The research from the National Institute on Aging recommends three to five weekly anchor commitments for optimal structure without over scheduling. Let me give you some examples of physical anchors.

Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday morning walk at seven Tuesdays and Thursdays, gym class at 09:30. Not because you have to, because maybe you committed to do that. Or, maybe you have social anchors. Every Thursday I'm going to have lunch with my former colleagues. Or Sunday afternoons, I'm going to call the kids, call the grandkids.

A recurring connection that doesn't require a negotiation or this dialogue back and forth of how are we going to meet up this week because we haven't, we haven't set it up. Purpose anchors are another. Tuesday mornings, I volunteer at the library. I don't. I'm saying as an example, you could do that.

Or, Wednesday afternoons, you're going to work on that woodworking project. Things tied to your Ikegai that get a protected spot. This is a very interesting read sitting in my seat, but the British Heart Foundation study on retirement wellness found that people with three to seven weekly commitments report optimal balance and structure. Fewer than three and days start to feel a little aimless. More than seven and it feels like work.

So, that sweet spot is somewhere between three to seven, let's call it five anchor commitments. Now, here's what makes an anchor commitment different from just the stuff you have to do on your calendar, right? Number one, they're recurring. Same time, same day, most weeks, right? It's just Pencil it in, it's there.

Number two, they're non negotiable. Treat these like they matter because they do. Number three, they serve something. Your health, your purpose, your relationships. It's not just filler.

It's not just keeping busy. When Tom, our structured achiever, tried this, he cut his daily schedule from 12 time blocks to five weekly anchors. Suddenly, he had structure and breathing room. When Sarah, our flexible explorer, added three weekly anchors, she said, For the first time in months, I feel like I'm building something instead of drifting. Pillar number two, those peak energy blocks.

Here's something nobody tells you about retirement. You have a chronotype. That is your biological rhythm. You've known all your life that there is a time of day when your brain feels sharp, when your energy peaks, when you're naturally your most creative or social self. In your career, you might have ignored this because you weren't in control of when meetings or deadlines happen and you have to have that 8AM stand up even if you're a night owl.

Deep work at 3PM even though your brain shuts down and takes a nap at 2PM. But in retirement, you get to honor your actual biology. Penn, University of Pennsylvania research on habit forming in later life found that aligning high value activities with natural energy peaks dramatically increases follow through and satisfaction. And that just makes sense, right? If you're a morning person, you like to do things in the morning.

If you can, that's going to make you happy. That's going to make you effective. If you're a night owl and we have something in the morning, not so good. Here's the exercise. For one week, if you don't know where your energy feels the best, just make a note of it.

When do you feel the most alert? When do ideas just pop into your brain? When do you want to pull the covers up over your head and be alone? Is there a time of day that your brain feels sharp or less foggy, or for that matter, more foggy? Let's figure that out and protect your peak hours for high value activities.

If you're sharpest from nine to 11AM, then that's when you work on your meaningful project. Not when you do the laundry, right? So let's make sure that we're using this time for your peak. If you're, if you're the most social from two to five, that's when you schedule coffee with friends, not go work out, right? So, active aging emphasizes matching your activity to your energy, not some arbitrary should schedules.

Our friend Tom discovered he's a morning person who forced himself to work late for thirty years. His best thinking always happens from seven to ten, so that has to be protected fiercely. Sarah, big shocker here, she's not a morning person and her most creative self is eight to ten. Making sure she protected eight to ten made everything click. Your peak energy is your body's gift.

Do not waste it on low value tasks. Pillar three, intentional white space. This is like the oxymoron of all oxymorons, right? We are going to schedule, not to schedule. It might sound contradictory in an episode that's supposed to be all about structure, but stay with me.

You need to schedule nothing. Not nothing as in, I'll fill it up if something comes up. Nothing as in protected time that's only yours for spontaneity, rest, or whatever emerges. There is a ton of research out there about cognitive health that says unstructured time, genuine, honest downtime, is essential for processing. It's for creativity, for mental restoration.

Here's the trick, if you don't schedule white space, other things will fill it. Because humans are really good at filling empty time, especially with just low value busyness. We're going to be intentional about our lack of intention. Two types of white space. There's that daily margin, if you will, thirty to sixty minutes completely unscheduled every day.

No plans, no goals, no I shoulds. You can read if that's what you want to do. Nap if that's what you want to do. Stare out the window and see if the bushes stare back. Or, a weekly flex block, one half day or full day with zero commitments.

This is your yes space. That buffer that lets you say yes to spontaneous opportunities. Coffee invitation, concert tickets, grandkids need help, you've got space. The University of Michigan's Time Use Studies found that retirees who protect 15 to 20% of their hours, 15 to 20% of their waking hours report lower stress and higher life satisfaction than those who schedule every hour. It just makes sense, right?

When Tom got away from his full day of retirement scheduling, his wife noticed that he was present in their relationship, in their home for the first time in months instead of just mentally running through his checklist and checking off tasks. You have to give yourself the permission to do nothing. Scheduled, intentional, nothing. Since it's scheduled, that counts as structure. All right.

Pillar four, evening closure. One of my favorites. It's a routine that you do to tell your body that we're transitioning from our awake, active, towards our quiet sleep, right? You already had this in your career. You had a ritual where you left the office.

You shut down your computer. You did your commute. You listened to an extraordinary podcast from the Casual Mondays podcast or whatever your routine may have been, but that told your body, okay, work's done, life begins. Right? In retirement, there's no such transition.

The day just ends or it doesn't. It just fades into evening, into night, into tomorrow. That lack of closure messes with your sense of accomplishment. Retirees who create intentional end of day rituals sleep better and have more motivation the next day. This is not something crazy like you're going to, you know, go out and have a pyre every night in the front yard, which kind of sounds awesome.

The most important part is just that it's consistent and you do it every evening. So, Here's a couple of examples that maybe trigger you, right? Spend five minutes reflecting on your day. Write down, What's one thing I'm glad I did? What's one thing I'm looking forward to tomorrow?

Or do an activity that signals the day is done. Okay, I'm going to take an evening walk, right? Or, I'm going to have a drink. Tea, wine, Johnny Walker, whatever your thing is, right? I'm not judging.

Taking off your daytime clothes and putting on some evening clothes, even if you're not going anywhere. You can do it as a shutdown type ritual, right? You remember closing your laptop at work or what have you? Clear off your kitchen counter. Set tomorrow's anchor items out purposefully.

Your gym bag, your walking shoes, what have you. Remember Mr. Rogers? How he would get his sweater, change his shoes, all of those things? That's what we're talking about.

We're talking about doing something intentional that tells your brain today is complete rather than today just happens, right? Take a walk with somebody you love and talk about what are the things the two of you are proud of. I think there's a lot of possibilities here. Your brain just needs an end point, so let's give it one. Before we break, let's talk about timing.

We said in the beginning of the show that the British Heart Foundation study, found what they call the ninety day window. The first three months of retirement are when your patterns are set, almost universally. If you spend ninety days drifting, drifting becomes your default. If you spend ninety days rigidly over scheduling, rigidity becomes your default. So, here's your challenge.

Let's reset. Spend ninety days experimenting with structure. Try this table method, these four pillars for one month, and then adjust. Try it again for another month make adjustments. By the end of month three, you'll have a rhythm that you own.

Might not be perfect, might not be permanent, but it's definitely going to be yours. We'll be right back.

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All right. We're not leaving this episode without a clear next step. So, here's your five step structure builder. And I'll put this in the show notes. Step one, choose your three weekly anchors.

Just pick three recurring commitments for next week. One physical, like health related, one social where you're investing in your connections. And one purposeful, one that kind of sustains your Ike Gai. Put them on your calendar, whether that's on your phone calendar or a paper calendar, and treat them like appointments that you can't miss. Step two, identify your peak energy window.

This is the observation week. Again, just notice when you're at your best, right? No judgment, no forcing, just becoming aware. Step three, we're going to protect one hour starting tomorrow. Take one hour during your peak time block and block it for high value activity.

Not email, not errands, meaningful work, creative projects, learning time. One hour, completely protected. Step four, we're going to schedule thirty minutes of nothing every day. Now, don't write nothing on your calendar, but just white space. Literally write in white space.

Schedule, nothing at all. Then when you get to that time, honor it. Just let it be. Don't fill it with a dentist appointment. Step five, let's create your evening ritual.

Choose one small ritual that signals that the day is done, whether that's your walk, cup of tea, journal entry, whatever that might be. Just something that says, Today counted. Tomorrow is a fresh start. Now, let's be real. Will you nail this perfectly?

No. Heck no. Will some days just fall apart and your sense of direction just crater? Absolutely. Will your structure evolve?

Percent. Because our point isn't perfection. The point is structure that serves you instead of structure that controls you. Tom's structure now includes three weekly anchors, protected morning hours, and genuine white space. He's still structured because that's who he is, but it's flexible.

Sarah, who was our drifter, now has daily morning routines, weekly social anchors, and protected creative time. She's still spontaneous, but it's grounded spontaneity. I can tell you, both Tom and Sarah are thriving. Neither look like their old corporate calendar and both of them are happy as they could be. All right.

Our assignment, that five day structure experiment, Monday through Friday, implement the five step structure builder I just outlined. At the end of each day, ask yourself, did my structure serve me today or did it constrain me? What one tweak would make tomorrow better? By Friday evening, you will have your data, real data on what works for you because here's the truth, there's no one right way to structure retirement. Some people need more and some people need a lot less.

That's not better or worse, it's just yours. The goal isn't to replicate someone else's rhythm, it's to discover the rhythm that lets you wake up with purpose, move through your day with intention, go to bed satisfied. You traded your nine to five for something better. Let's make sure something better actually feels better. On our next episode, we're talking about the social network reboot.

Because all the structure in the world doesn't matter if you're spending your days alone. We're talking about how to build genuine community when your work friends fade and your social calendar feels empty. I'm Kevin Donahue and this is the Casual Mondays podcast. Your days are completely yours. Let's structure them in a way that honors your freedom and your best life.

Thanks everybody.

Thank you for streaming today's episode. For more from our conversation, you'll find links and resources in the show notes. If you would like to join the show, record your story as a voice message on our website at casualmondayspodcast.com. You'll also find our Casual Mondays club newsletter on the website with behind the scenes notes, suggestions, and previews delivered to your email inbox every month. As always, be sure to click subscribe in your app so our future episodes are available automatically.

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