Objectively, there is absolutely nothing wrong with my Wednesdays. NOTHING. So just to clarify: this is not a complaint post. (I could complain about other things, like everyone’s bones breaking, but not my Wednesday work life).
It is just me noticing that I tend to struggle on Wednesdays, and I have no idea why this is.
One might think I would find Thursday or even Friday (full day of patients while lots of people have more chill in their workloads, perhaps) to be the biggest weekly challenge. But no: if I were to color code my mood each day (surprisingly, I’ve never actually tried this), I suspect there would be a pattern with a weekly nadir tending to fall on Wednesday.
Reasons:
- I always have creative work to do, but it’s usually of the less clearly defined type and I get an antsy/aimless feeling sometimes. On Monday, I’m almost always recording and sometimes teaching a course. I love the structure and deadlines! (And honestly, I kind just love Mondays. Fresh start and all that.)
- I am often kinda tired by midweek and have been compounding that by getting up at 5 to make it to 6 AM Pilates.
- I generally aim to clean out my email inbox each Wednesday and I never actually want to do that (BUT I’m always so, so glad I did it!)
- It’s one of our later nights this summer, and maybe I have some pent-up anxiety about potential pickups during bad weather? Though I anticipate that once school/dance starts, every weekday Mon – Thurs will all feature at least one 8:45 or 9 PM pickup. I guess at least it’s . . . sort of stable/consistent that way? (I am SOOOOO hoping that no kid has anything essential they are dying to do on Fridays! Crossing every appendage, but we don’t have the official gym schedule yet!)
Anyway. I wonder if I need to work on making Wednesdays . . . rebranded or something. Maybe spend time on totally creative (and fun!) work in the morning, like designing workbooks or writing blog posts. I could try to plan a short outing of sorts in the afternoon — Artist’s Date anyone? I could try sleeping a bit later, getting more work done in the morning, and moving Pilates to the end of the day (5 – 6p and 7 – 8p are both possibilities). I could put a standing email cleanout meeting (with myself) on the calendar.
Oh, and I could even move Ice Cream Friday (currently kind of a thing, though usually it’s just a low key thing at home) to Ice Cream Wednesday since I tend to get Starbucks on Friday anyway (never a good day for my macros).
There is nothing that makes Wednesday inherently bad so I feel like I can ‘fix’ this typical midweek slump! Will report back.
(Maybe I also need an interesting and juicy theme for Wednesday blog posts! Ideas welcome . . . we will start with the one that popped into my mind, below.)
RETIREMENT THOUGHTS
We are not planning on retiring anytime soon, but I found Kathleen’s recent Reframe ep (she called it “Field Notes from 6 Months of Early Retirement) and the latest ep of Ramit Sethi’s Money for Couples (couple in late 50s/early 60s with very strong savings facing retirement decisions) entirely fascinating. Especially this question Ramit posed:
What would you actually want to do all day if you were retired? Like, what would you actually like/expect your “retired lifestyle” to look like? What would you spend time and money on, ideally?
This is a hard question! And of course, it’s all theoretical. And very dependent on health and the state of the world, among other things.
Let’s start with the easier part: things I know I will not care about (because I don’t care about them now . . .): impeccable decor (truly, I’m good with IKEA for life), designer bags, fancy jewelry (to be honest I would like one really well-made piece with the kids’ birthstones, but not planning to like habitually shop for diamonds)
Things I most definitely will care about: travel (including nice hotels — I’m not really into roughing it now and suspect my older self won’t be either), not spending lots of time on housework (ie: I would still like to outsource some of this), being able to spend time with the kids, which would include spending $ to continue to take them on fun adventures (as well as help support them during college years). I don’t feel like I’d want to eat out all the time, but I could see enjoying a fun restaurant night out weekly and also regularly socializing over dinner with friends on other nights, at our place or theirs. I will want to celebrate birthdays and holidays in style with the people I love!
Things money can’t really buy, but I would spend to try to support them: health, relationships
I tried to think about what a typical day would look like, but it’s pretty hard! All I know is that it would typically include time with Josh as well as friends and/or family, time spent being active, time spent contributing to society in some interesting ways (volunteering — not sure doing what, but something; writing on the world’s oldest personal blog), hopefully time spent outdoors/in nature, and time spent learning or appreciating art of various types.
I’d want to be able to say ‘yes’ to almost any experience that sounded cool – especially with friends or family! – without worrying about cost. (ERAS TOUR 4.0 in Paris? Yes please! Will it be all 70 + 80 year olds and their 40s-50s offspring? That would be awesome.)
Oh, and I would not turn down the opportunity to live somewhere with better weather during the summer and fall.
So there you go! ‘Rich Life’ Visions I guess? Have you ever played with these thought experiments? Or contemplated the gap between your current life and what you’d like to do ‘someday’?
I honestly don’t feel like my current lifestyle is that far from what I would consider ideal or what I imagine Ramit’s version of a ‘rich life’ to be, except I would love to have more ability to travel (main barriers here: that pesky ol’ school schedule, finite travel budget, and paid time off limitations). Oh, and I wish I were past the point of answering overnight calls (though I 100% recognize that I am meeting a need by doing it, and also would not want to disproportionally foist this burden on colleagues).
But in an idealized lifestyle, I would looooove to sleep through the night for the rest of my life if it were possible.
10 Comments
Ha. I totally, totally get this. For various reasons, Thursdays used to be my “hard” days. Some of those reasons no longer exist, but out of habit I still kind of grumble about Thursdays. And I definitely know that antsy/aimless feeling because I had it yesterday. Trying to rebrand Wednesdays is a good idea- I hope you report back on how that goes!
I’ve often had the thought “I would have time for everything, if only I didn’t have to go to work!” But if I really didn’t have to go to work, I would definitely need some sort of structure for my days, projects, etc. I haven’t really come up with what that would look like, other than… I would like to live somewhere else. Preferably near mountains. I’m sure I could put together a happy retirement life!
I think the transition from a highly structured day (e.g. clinical day) to an unstructured creative day is just really challenging. When I was clinical on M, Tu, every other W, I *always* struggled with my re-entry to creativity on every other W, Th, F, which was further exacerbated by being exhausted from a call or late shift. I felt sooooo unproductive on those days a lot of the time, and then guilty because I wasn’t getting “enough” done on those days. It also didn’t help that that’s when I had time for life admin as well.
Things that made it better:
1) Having two non-clinical days in a row rather than staggered at random throughout the week
2) Planning some easy admin tasks for re-entry to creative life
3) Not withholding exercise as a reward for productivity
4) Keeping a list of tasks I planned to do. Granular tasks like “find and open XYZ file” or “read XYZ” work better than “write methods for XYZ paper.”
5) Trying not to beat myself up about not getting enough done.
As for retirement, I basically live exactly in the kind of place I want to be for retirement currently. We have also considered moving back to a city like Chicago or Seattle, or potentially elsewhere in the Midwest like maybe Madison, Milwaukee, or Cincinnati (someplace with a good children’s hospital). Someplace cool (temperature-wise). I think I’d like to keep working clinically at least 2 days per week (with no call) as long as my health and sanity allow. I also love doing home maintenance projects, gardening, and having dogs. I used to fantasize about being able to pay for my daughter’s college and grad school, and then *also* subsidizing a first house purchase, childcare, and whatever else — like a lot of my colleagues have, but I think college plus paying for future family vacations may be a more realistic vision for the future. Can’t be too sad about that!
Ooh yes, I love the idea of a Wednesday rebrand. Perhaps you could start the day by a visit to Starbucks or a nice library or something to do a creative work block, before tackling any admin etc. I find a change of scenery can work wonders when I’m trying to write/create. And then it would hopefully feel like a treat.
Your retirement sounds exactly like my parents’- and they are loving it. They travel and visit family, say yes to everything, lots of concerts, go to gym 3 days per week, have a local coffee shop where everyone knows them, Dad volunteers, and is now the Acting President of his local org, and Mum plays in a Ukelele group. And of course lots of time with us and the grandkids!. They are inspiration for me in my retirement one day.
Retirement is likely 5-10 years away from me, but the kids will still be in school so I won’t have the flexibility in our schedule until the kids are out of school, plus my husband does not plan to retire as early as I do so he’ll still be working, probably until he’s 58-60, so retirement is 18-20 years away for him. So the first segment of retirement will look different than when we are both retired and the kids are done with school. I have no concerns about filling my time, though. I envision lots of workouts, reading, more involved meal planning/cooking, and I hope to get on the board of our library system since I am very passionate about reading/literacy. I’d also like to volunteer. Beyond that, I’ll be more available to shuttle the kids around to their various activities. The next segment of retirement is a big question mark as I don’t know if we’d potentially move elsewhere for part of the year. My husband doesn’t even like to hypothesize about it since so much can change in the next 10-15 years that would impact that decision – namely, where are our kids living. I look forward to traveling more! We barely travel right now since it’s not a good use of money (for us) given the ages/personalities of our kids… So that spending bucket will certainly increase in the years to come.
Retired person chiming in! I put a lot of thought into what my retirement schedule would look like, and like Kathleen said, I have never been bored for one minute. Believe it or not, I’m starting to feel over scheduled and like I need to start doing less. So that’s what I’ll be working on while you’re figuring out a rebrand for Wednesdays.
My husband retired in 2023 – he was a month shy of 58 – and I will say that although there was an adjustment period to be sure, he has no problems filling his days. I guess I am kind of retired too, although I only have worked part-time at most since 2004. Anyway, our kids are grown and the majority of our discretionary spending is travel related. Also, since my husband loves planning trips, that also takes time! He spends quite a bit of time every week planning various trips, flights, etc. I spend a lot of time reading, gardening, walking, and exercising. It’s a good life! I’m so glad he retired when he did because I feel like (sorry, morbid) he would have died much younger due to the stress of his job. Of course this is such a privileged position to be in, not everyone can do this, but we were able and I am so happy we did. My husband doesn’t miss work in the least! No one can take long-term health for granted, so we are front-loading big trips now while we can. Also, maybe one day we will have grandchildren, and then the priorities will change! But for now, this is life for us, and I love it.
I have no trouble envisioning retirement life and find myself dreaming of it often – likely telling me something! Physical activity every day, plenty of time outside being active and social (walking, hiking, biking, etc. with family/friends), hobby-life of mahjong, tennis, reading, planning and cooking meals I’m excited about. I also recently decided I want to live a month in Europe in fall and a month in the south/warmth in winter – rent a home and maybe tack on two weeks of travel before or after. I’d want to incent (i.e. pay for travel) to have kids visit us when traveling and still travel with them as well. I love this thought exercise and now need to get back to work to pay for this future…ha!
Totally agree about Wednesdays– that’s why it’s officially my “sleep in” day, because I’ve learned the reason I’m so grumpy is lack of energy! It’s also good to plan something fun for midweek though, which is why now I also visit my baby niece on Wednesday afternoons. Nothing cheers you up like holding a baby. (And then giving her back!)
On the subject of my niece– my sister runs her own jewelry company and custom-makes birthstone necklaces, in case you’re interested in that necklace you mentioned. Here’s her website if you’re interested: https://elementsbykaitlyn.com/pages/custom
I suspect I’m in the minority, and this probably reflects some deep rooted insecurity, but I can’t ever imagine retiring! I love my job, I love being productive and being well compensated for my time and knowledge. Even just thinking about retirement makes me melancholy. I’m a veterinarian but I’ve been working since I was 15, and honestly have loved something about all of my jobs (grocery store clerk, fast food employee, nanny). Anyone else feel this way?!
We are planning to retire at 55. It’s the same year Simone will age out of public school. If she doesn’t need a caregiver, she’ll need someone to navigate paperwork on her behalf, and that could be a full time job in and of itself. Having to deal with the stress of navigating her needs and a stressful job seems like a way to take years off my life. And if we’re financially capable of retiring early, what’s the point of working more in very stressful circumstances in order to have money we’ll never spend?
We’re hoping by then that Simone is a good traveler and the three of us are able to explore more of the world together. My husband and I were in Panama a couple of years ago and met a couple traveling with their adult daughter who has Down Syndrome and we both thought that would be amazing to do with Simone.
Once things are more settled with Simone, I’d like to switch careers altogether and become a part-time financial planner. If my husband wants to continue working (which he probably will knowing him), he’s able to take individual cases on a contractual basis with his current office – it’s a common path for people in his office to take who want to ease into retirement. So I guess it isn’t really retirement if we’re both still working, but we won’t be working because we’ll need to financial so it will be work we want to do, only the amount we want to do, and with a lot of autonomy over our time and workload.