Dear LPG, 

I think that one of the myths that many people have about becoming retired before they actually get to that stage of their lives, is that it will assure them lots and lots of spare time on their hands. That may well be true as you get to the older stages of retirement, but for many, retirement just means not having to be employed for most of the time doing something to secure your income.  It is often only when we get to the ‘gold watch’ stage of life that most retirees learn that it does not necessarily mean that there is nothing to do once your weekday nine to five is not dictated by a wage-paying job.

In my experience and, taking into account the thoughts of my friends of a certain age, I have assessed that many retired people will agree that it is not long before you find a whole new set of preoccupations to take up your time.

Firstly, there is that family who become so aware of all your free time and assume that you have plenty of it to house-sit either at your house or there’s, so that online orders will be met by someone at the front door on their scheduled arrival, then there are the children and nephews and nieces who unconsciously or consciously find themselves an unpaid way to deliver and collect the next generation of little ones as they commute to and from school.  The younger ones become Grandma’s full time occupation before they know it and this is one way of securing a stronger relationship with them if they live close enough.  

On the subject of caring, this is often the time when our own parents need us more than before because they are getting a bit frailer and need someone to depend on, and this is another way that the younger pensioner might find their time tied up before they know it.  It is also easy to become the sibling that all the others assume will be happy to do this and just leave with the task while deducing that they are the only obvious choice of relative for this duty.

You only have to be introduced to one club or hobby to find yourself with another pursuit that you really enjoy; and when formulating your new routine, it is so easy to become seriously involved because you have the time to give both for your newly found pursuit and, with the administrative duties of the group. 

Then there is the hard fact that getting older often comes with a degree of illness that has to be addressed.  This often results in many appointments with your GP (even though they are more likely to be conversations on a telephone these days. 

The truth this that we often jump (or are pushed) into these somewhat time-consuming preoccupations before we have time to realise it.  We find ourselves well and truly trapped in these time restraints, and our health and family commitments really don’t help much.  The other thing that we can nearly always be sure of is that whatever our time issues we are never satisfied with what we are really achieving; we either have too much time on our hands or not enough.  

Perhaps the answer is to build a little timeout time into our routines to stand back and take an objective view of what we are achieving (as opposed to what we want to achieve).  Having done that it might be a bit easier to make sure that there is neither too little or too much spare time built into the mix.  

It makes perfect sense if you think about it and it is something that I do try to do daily in my attempt to get the balance right.  Working at it in a similar way to the way that I try to make sense of my financial situation is one way to go although I do have to say that I have not got it down perfectly because I still make daily adjustments, but working out what there will not be time for helps…

IP, Forest Hill 

LPG found some diverse internet gen on the subject of time management….

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…and adds some information on today’s celebration…

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