Now that I’m moving into my third year of “mostly retirement,” I’ve finally realized I’ve been keeping myself nearly as busy as I was when I worked full time.

But I don’t have to.

Last January, I resolved to start a new timekeeping habit. I’m glad I did. I’ve already added a page to my spreadsheet for 2024.

My first year as a personal timekeeper wasn’t perfect. I missed whole weeks — many of them while traveling to and from a variety of writing conferences. I also didn’t keep great records when I tried to squeeze in a little writing time while on family trips. Then I lost a couple weeks toward the end of 2023 when I caught the worst cold I’ve had in years! I can’t remember the last one that sent me home to bed. (I tested; it wasn’t covid.)

But I learned a lot from the incomplete data that I managed to collect. (I do love data.)

First, I have to cut my conference attendance. They are tons of fun and I love seeing old friends, making new ones, and learning tricks of the writing trade. But I’ve decided I can only do one writing event in 2024. Going virtually cold turkey will be hard, but I have to do it.

I’ve also known for a while that I was over committed to volunteer projects. Especially ones that play to the strengths I developed over years of working. I’ve always been taught to give back, and once I stopped working full time it seemed like there was more time to give.

But a couple of volunteer roles that were simple when I took them on developed “project creep” when other board members dropped out. Things still had to get done.

And there was one role I stepped into a few years ago that didn’t give me a full “job description” when I said yes. I’ve since discovered that other board members took on some of the tasks no one mentioned to me. And I learned “on the job” about other expectations I wasn’t prepared for. That one group consumed more than half of my “volunteer giving” hours in 2023.

The other 11 groups I helped in 2023 took slightly less than half of all my volunteer hours last year. One “group” is my former full-time employer, which still asks me to fill in from time-to-time. I tote it up with the volunteer time because I could say no. (But they still pay me, so I say yes.)

While I willingly agreed to do more “for a while” when board compositions changed, “a while” is over.

I’ve already finished my commitments to two of the 11 groups. The terms I committed to range from a year, or two, or three, to indefinite. I’m giving some serious thought to resigning from a couple others. And you can bet I’m counting the months until I finish my term for the major time-sucking organization (TSO).

I did a quick calculation of how the percentages would have looked without that TSO in 2023. I’d have had 43% in volunteer time; 36% in learning and research; and 21% in writing and revising. That’s still not where I want my writing time to be, so I’ll have to trim more of the volunteer time.

My goal for 2024 is 50% of my time in writing and revising, 30% in learning and research, and 20% in volunteering. That’s one day a week in “work hours.” I think that’s still pretty generous. And I think I can do it.

Just remember, if you ask me to do anything in 2024, don’t be surprised if I just say NO! Don’t take it personally. I still love you and your organization. But I really want to finish some of the writing projects that I’ve dabbled with for decades.

And I won’t even mention all the stuff around the house that I haven’t done because of everything else. But that’s another story….

I’ll let you know how it works out.

À bientôt!