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A Sixty and Me contributor describes comparing her retirement priorities with her calendar and finding that coaching work crowded out activities she valued. Her proposed exercise asks readers to rate five to seven activities from the previous week and examine what felt rewarding, draining or out of proportion. The piece offers personal reflection, not research showing that the exercise improves retirement wellbeing.
A contributor to Sixty and Me says reviewing the previous week helped her see why activities she valued were missing from her retirement routine: coaching-related tasks were taking over her calendar. In an essay about planning for a more satisfying retirement, she proposes rating recent activities to identify what felt energizing and what may have crowded it out. The article is a personal account and practical exercise, not a report of research establishing that the approach improves wellbeing.
The writer says she retired from a university the year before and chose to include coaching women through retirement in her own retirement plan. In early September, she listed the things she most wanted her life to include: friends, art, nature, writing, family and health. When she checked her calendar, she found that coaching tasks occupied much of her week.
She says she enjoyed conversations with clients, but routine work around them — repeatedly editing a newsletter, revising a blog post, changing her website and polishing a guide — was taking more time than she intended. In her journal, she wrote: “I’m constantly finding ways to improve and it’s exhausting me.” The account describes her own experience; it does not establish that coaching work or retirement activities have the same effect for other people.
A day she recorded as especially satisfying included coffee with her husband and cat, a walk and breakfast with a friend, knitting, art, one newsletter task, gardening, a bath, television, errands, dinner and a neighborhood walk. She says the important difference was the order: personal activities came before work on the newsletter, rather than being left until after work that could expand to fill the day.
Her suggested exercise is to list five to seven activities from the previous week, including chosen activities and obligations, and score each from minus five to plus five. She defines positive scores as experiences that felt energizing or joyful, and negative scores as those that felt draining or tense. She then suggests looking for patterns among the higher scores and considering whether anything took more time than intended.
Using a Week to Set Retirement Priorities
The essay’s practical point is that a recent week can offer a more specific starting place than imagining retirement in the abstract. A record of actual activities may help a reader distinguish between what they value and what their schedule currently allows. The writer also emphasizes that timing matters: placing valued activities earlier in the day may change how much room remains for other work.
That distinction may be relevant both to people who have retired and to those still working. The contributor suggests reviewing the whole week, not just work hours, to spot activities someone may want to carry into retirement. For retirees whose days feel unstructured, even a phone call or short walk can be included. These are suggestions based on the author’s experience; the source provides no study, measured outcome or evidence that the scoring method works for everyone.
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From a Retirement List to a Daily Routine
The contributor says she had retired from a university and made coaching part of her post-retirement life because she enjoyed supporting women through retirement changes. Her difficulty was not that coaching itself had no value. Rather, she says, the associated editing and website tasks had expanded until they displaced activities such as art classes and meeting friends.
She connects her calendar review with a particularly enjoyable day recorded a few days later. The experience led her to focus not only on which activities mattered, but on what came first. In the essay, she also refers to a short exercise and a free email series, though the supplied source does not give details about the series or independently evaluate it.
““an intense feeling of deep spiritual connection, pleasure, and appreciation.””
— Brené Brown, as quoted by the Sixty and Me contributor
What the Personal Exercise Can Show
The source does not report research testing whether weekly activity scores predict retirement satisfaction, nor does it compare the method with other planning approaches. The scoring scale is the contributor’s suggested tool, and its effects on readers are unknown. People may also interpret “joy,” energy and obligation differently, or face work, health, caregiving or financial limits that a calendar review cannot resolve.
The essay describes the writer’s plans to protect time for art lessons, hiking, exercise, a women’s group and friends after returning from vacation. The supplied account does not report whether she followed those plans or what changed afterward. It also does not specify the publication date, the email series schedule or the full details of the exercise beyond the instructions included in the article.
The Writer Plans Calendar Changes
The contributor says she intends to block time for art lessons, hiking, the gym, a new women’s group and friends in the first week after returning home. She also plans to make short checklists on some evenings when she senses that her routine is losing the balance she wants.
For readers, the next step proposed in the essay is to record a recent week, score its activities and look for patterns in what felt rewarding or draining. Whether that reflection changes a person’s schedule or retirement plans is not established by the source; the writer says she plans to continue paying attention to her own days.
Key Questions
What does the Sixty and Me contributor recommend?
She suggests listing five to seven activities from the previous week, including obligations, scoring them from minus five to plus five, and reviewing which felt energizing or draining.
Why does she focus on the order of activities?
The writer says coaching-related tasks often came first and expanded, leaving less room for art, friends and other priorities. On a day she enjoyed, she did those activities before writing her newsletter.
Is the exercise supported by research in the source?
No. The supplied article presents it as a personal reflection tool and does not cite research evaluating whether it improves retirement wellbeing.
Can people who are still working use the exercise?
Yes. The contributor suggests scoring the whole week, including activities outside work, as a way to notice what someone may want more of in retirement. She does not claim that the exercise predicts how retirement will feel.
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