What Will I Actually Do When I Retire?

For years, retirement can feel like a finish line. You imagine the final day at work. The laptop closes. The out-of-office goes on. Maybe there’s a leaving do, a few slightly embarrassing speeches and the strange realisation that you don’t have to come back on Monday.

Then comes the first holiday.

A few jobs around the house.

Longer mornings. No commute. No Sunday evening feeling.

Brilliant.

But I’m interested in what happens after that.

Not during your first week of retirement. Not while you’re on the holiday you’ve been promising yourself for years.

Imagine you’ve been retired for twelve months. It’s an ordinary Tuesday in October.

You wake up.

What do you actually do?

That’s the question behind this article.

We’ve already talked elsewhere on GoodLifeBetter about getting financially prepared, organising your life before retirement and making plans for the years ahead.

This time, forget pensions, tax, mortgages and retirement income targets.

Let’s talk about the life itself.

The Tuesday Test

Try this.

Imagine it’s a Tuesday morning one year after you’ve retired.

There’s nothing special in the diary.

No holiday.
No family birthday.
No hospital appointment.
No Christmas preparations.
No builder arriving at eight.
Just an ordinary day.

You make a cup of tea or coffee and sit down.

Now what 🤷‍♂️

Perhaps you take the dog for a walk.
Maybe Tuesday is your gym day.
Perhaps you meet somebody for coffee.
Maybe you’ve got grandchildren for a few hours.
Perhaps you’re learning Spanish because you keep threatening to spend a month in Spain.
You could be restoring an old car, volunteering somewhere, working on the garden, heading into Manchester for lunch or planning your next trip.
Or perhaps you’re doing absolutely nothing.

And thoroughly enjoying it.

There’s no correct answer.

But there is a useful question:

Would I be happy if quite a few of my retirement days looked like this?

Because that’s what retirement will mostly consist of.

Ordinary days.

Retirement Isn’t a Permanent Holiday

It’s easy to picture retirement through its highlights.

The Greek island.
The cruise.
The Lake District cottage.
Christmas with the family.
The long planned trip to Australia.
The summer afternoon in the garden with nowhere else to be.

Those moments matter.

But if you retire at 65 and live into your 80s, you’re potentially looking at thousands of days without work.

Most won’t be spent watching the sunset in Santorini.

They’ll be spent at home.

That’s not depressing. Quite the opposite.

It means one of the biggest opportunities in retirement isn’t simply having more holidays.

It’s gaining much more control over ordinary life.

The trick is working out what you’d like to do with it.

What Disappears When Work Disappears?

Even if you can’t wait to finish work, it’s worth recognising what employment has been doing in the background.

Work gives the week structure.
Monday feels different from Saturday.
There are places you need to be and times you need to be there.
There are people you speak to simply because your lives repeatedly cross.
There are problems to solve.
There are deadlines.
There are things you’re good at.
There are people who ask your opinion.
There’s a reason to get dressed before lunchtime.
Work can also become part of our identity.

Someone asks what you do and there’s an immediate answer.

Engineer.
Nurse.
Teacher.
Manager.
Electrician.
Accountant.
Designer.

Whatever it happens to be.

Then one day that role ends.

None of this is an argument for staying at work forever.

It’s simply worth understanding that retirement doesn’t only remove the bits of working life we disliked.

Some useful things disappear too.

Research into retirement adjustment increasingly looks at factors such as identity, social connection, purpose, activity and the structure of daily life alongside financial circumstances.

That gives us a clue about what we might want to build in their place.

Not another job. A life.

You Don’t Need to Find Your One Great Purpose

This is where retirement advice can become unnecessarily intimidating.

Find your purpose.

It sounds like something that should be written on a mountain while somebody stares meaningfully into the distance.

Your purpose doesn’t need to be that grand.

You don’t need to save the world.
You don’t need to start a company.
You don’t need to write a book.

And you certainly don’t need to turn every hobby into a side hustle.

Purpose might be looking after your grandchildren one day a week.

It might be volunteering.
It could be restoring a classic car.
Helping at a football club.
Growing vegetables.
Learning to play guitar.
Walking the dog every morning.
Looking after somebody.
Creating something.
Helping somebody younger with skills you’ve spent 40 years learning.
Or having a project that gives you something to think about when you wake up.

I’d define retirement purpose much more simply:

Something that matters enough to you that you’re pleased it’s part of your life.

You can have several of those.

In fact, that’s probably better.

Seven Questions Worth Answering

Rather than trying to produce a grand 25 year retirement plan, I’d look at seven parts of life.

They’re deliberately not financial.

They’re about what retirement might actually contain.

Travel: How Much of My Retirement Do I Really Want to Spend Exploring?

A lot of retirement conversations eventually arrive at the same sentence.

“We’ll travel more.”

Good.

But what does more mean?

Perhaps you want three or four European holidays a year.

Maybe you’d rather have lots of two and three night UK breaks.
Perhaps you’ve always wanted to spend a month somewhere rather than squeezing everything into seven nights.
You might fancy travelling around Italy by train.
Island hopping in Greece.
A cottage in the Lake District.
Japan.
A road trip.
Walking holidays.
Cruises.

Or perhaps you’re perfectly happy having one good holiday each year and spending the rest of your time at home.

The interesting question isn’t where everybody thinks you should travel.

It’s:

What role do I want travel to play in my life?

Travel could be one of the things that makes retirement exciting.

But it doesn’t need to become retirement itself.

There are still plenty of Tuesdays between the holidays.

Purpose: What Will Make Some Days Feel Worthwhile?

Imagine two retirement days.

On the first, you wake up with absolutely nothing you need or want to do.

That could feel wonderful.

On the second day, the same thing happens.

Still pretty good.

Now imagine it happens every day for six months.

That may feel rather different.

Most of us probably need a mixture.

Freedom from obligation, but also a few things that give the week some shape.

A project can do that.
So can volunteering.
Family responsibilities can.
A hobby can.
A little paid work might.
Learning something can.

The important distinction is that retirement allows more of these things to happen on your terms.

You’re not trying to replace a 40-hour working week with a 40 hour retirement schedule.

You’re simply making sure there’s something in the week you’re interested in getting up for.

Relationships: Who Is Actually Going to Be in My Week?

This deserves more attention than it gets.

How many people do you currently speak to because of work?

People you wouldn’t necessarily arrange to meet socially but who have nevertheless been part of your life for years.

Then work stops.

Some of those relationships will continue.

Others will quietly disappear.

At the same time, you may suddenly spend much more time with your partner.

Children may be busy with their own careers.

Grandchildren may become a bigger part of life.

Old friendships might become more important.

New friendships may need somewhere to begin.

This matters because social connection is strongly associated with wellbeing as we age, while loneliness remains a significant issue among older adults in the UK.

But don’t translate that into:

I must join six clubs immediately.

Think more naturally.

Who do you enjoy spending time with?
Who have you lost touch with?
Where might you regularly meet people?
Walking groups.
Sport.
Volunteering.
Classes.
Community groups.
Former colleagues.
Neighbours.
The local pub.
The gym.
Football.

The important question is:

If work stopped tomorrow, who would still be part of my ordinary week?

If the answer is smaller than you’d like, that’s something you can start changing before retirement.

Activity: What Will Get Me Out of the House?

This isn’t really about exercise targets.

We’ll deal with health and fitness properly elsewhere on GoodLifeBetter.

This is about movement being part of life.

There’s an important difference.

Perhaps you walk the dog every morning.
Play golf twice a week.
Cycle.
Garden.
Swim.
Walk in the hills.
Go into town.
Take photographs.
Look after grandchildren.
Explore somewhere new.
Join a class.

Or simply make a habit of getting outside every day.

The NHS recommends that older adults remain physically active every day where possible, combining aerobic activity with activities that support strength, balance and flexibility.

But there’s another benefit that doesn’t fit neatly into an exercise target.

Activity gives the day somewhere to go.

“I’m walking this morning.”
“We’re going into town.”
“It’s swimming today.”
“I’m taking the dog somewhere different.”

Small anchors like that can create just enough structure without making retirement feel scheduled.

Learning: What Am I Still Curious About?

One of the strangest ideas about retirement is that learning somehow belongs to the first half of life.

School.
Qualifications.
Career.
Training.
Experience.

Then retirement arrives and apparently we’re finished.

Why?

If you’re retiring in your 60s, there could be decades ahead.

That’s a lot of time to remain curious.

And for perhaps the first time, you can learn things without needing them to advance your career.

Learn Italian because you like Italy.
Learn photography because you’ve always taken terrible photographs.
Learn guitar even if the neighbours suffer.
Learn to cook properly.
Understand astronomy.
Research your family history.
Learn how artificial intelligence works.
Build something.
Take a course.
Study local history.
Learn woodworking.
Go back to university.

The subject doesn’t particularly matter.

The interesting bit is having something where you can still say:

“I didn’t know how to do this six months ago.”

Work gives us plenty of opportunities to measure progress.

Retirement doesn’t automatically do that.

Learning can put some of it back.

Without the performance review.

Experiences: What Do I Want to Do While I Can?

This isn’t quite the same as travel.

Some of the best experiences might happen ten miles from home.

A concert.
A football match.
A long walk.
A restaurant you’ve always meant to try.
A theatre trip.
Camping with the grandchildren.
Seeing a band you’ve loved for 40 years.
Taking the dog to the coast.

Going somewhere on a Tuesday simply because everyone else is at work.

There are also experiences that may be easier during the earlier years of retirement.

A challenging walking holiday at 62 may be easier than at 82.

A longhaul adventure might be.

Travelling independently could be.

That doesn’t mean racing through retirement terrified that the clock is ticking.

It means recognising that retirement has different seasons.

There may be things you want to prioritise while you have the health, confidence and energy to enjoy them.

So ask:

If I kept saying “one day”, which experiences would I regret never turning into an actual date?

Pick one.

Put it in the calendar.

One day has an unfortunate habit of remaining one day.

Lifestyle: What Does a Good Ordinary Day Actually Feel Like?

This might be the most important question of the seven.

Forget destinations and achievements.

What sort of life suits you?

Busy?
Quiet?
Spontaneous?
Social?
Outdoors?
Home-based?
A mixture?
Do you want slow mornings?
Do you enjoy having plans?
Do you need time alone?
Do you like being around people?
Would you prefer to live somewhere quieter?
Do you want the freedom to disappear for a few days without much planning?
Do you want Sunday lunch with the family every week?
Would you like one or two regular commitments and leave everything else flexible?

There’s no ideal retirement lifestyle.

There is only one that fits you.

And that may be very different from the one social media, retirement adverts or somebody else’s Instagram account suggests you should want.

Try Building an Ordinary Retirement Week

Here’s where this becomes useful.

Don’t design your dream retirement.

Design a normal week.

Imagine you’ve been retired for a year.

Nothing unusual is happening.

Fill in just a few things you’d like an average week to contain.

There are free tools in the GLB Shop to do exactly this

Day	Morning	Afternoon	Evening
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

Don’t fill every box.

That’s important.

Perhaps you put:

Monday: Long walk.
Tuesday: Project or hobby.
Wednesday:Grandchildren.
Thursday: Gym and lunch out.
Friday: Completely free.
Saturday:Football.
Sunday: Family, roast dinner or absolutely nothing.

Your version could look completely different.

That’s the point.

Now look at the week and ask yourself:

Would I enjoy living this?
Would I see enough people?
Would I get out of the house?
Would I have enough time to myself?
Would I spend enough time with my partner?
Would I spend *too much* time with my partner?
Is there anything I’m looking forward to?
Is there something that challenges me?
Is there room to change my mind?
Would winter make this week very different?

And perhaps the biggest question:

If I repeated something broadly like this for the next ten years, would it feel like a good life?

That’s a surprisingly revealing exercise.

Leave Some Boxes Empty

Don’t accidentally turn retirement into another productivity system.

There’s a peculiar modern obsession with optimising every minute.

You don’t need to optimise retirement.

You earned the right to occasionally waste an afternoon.

Some of the best parts might be completely unproductive.

Coffee that turns into lunch.
Walking further because the weather’s good.
Sitting in the garden.
Reading.
Watching a film at two in the afternoon.
Going somewhere on the spur of the moment.
Taking the dog out and coming back two hours later.
Doing absolutely nothing and not feeling guilty about it.

A good retirement week needs white space

The aim isn’t to create another calendar full of obligations.

It’s to have enough happening that life feels interesting, while retaining the freedom you’ve spent decades working towards.

Retirement as a Couple Doesn’t Mean Becoming One Person

There is one part of the ordinary week exercise that’s particularly useful if you have a partner.

Do it separately first.
Don’t compare answers.

Then put the two weeks next to each other.

This could be interesting.

One person may have imagined:

Monday together.
Tuesday together.
Wednesday together.
Thursday together.

The other person’s imaginary week may contain suspiciously large quantities of time alone.

Neither is necessarily wrong.

Retirement can be a huge change for couples because two people who previously spent large parts of the working week apart may suddenly be together much more often.

You need shared things.

But you probably need individual things too.

Your friends.
Your interests.
Your projects.
Your time.

And then the things you genuinely enjoy doing together.

Retirement shouldn’t require either person to give up their individuality

Don’t Become Available for Everything

Something interesting happens when you retire.

Other people discover that you’ve retired.

Therefore, apparently, you have no plans.

Could you look after the grandchildren?
Could you wait in for a delivery?
Could you drive somebody somewhere?
Could you join this committee?
Could you help with that?
Could you have the dog?
Could you do Tuesday as well?

Helping family and other people can be one of the best parts of having more time.

But there’s a difference between choosing to give your time and discovering everybody else has allocated it for you.

You don’t need to defend your free time simply because you’re no longer being paid for it.

“I’ve got plans” remains a perfectly acceptable sentence.

Even when those plans involve a walk, a coffee and absolutely nobody else.

You Don’t Have to Be Spectacularly Productive

There’s another trap worth avoiding.

Retirement can become competitive.

Somebody is travelling six months of the year.
Somebody has started a business.
Somebody else runs marathons.

Your neighbour seems to play golf every morning.

A person on YouTube has apparently transformed retirement into a permanent sequence of campervan sunsets.

Good for them 👍

You don’t have to.

Your successful retirement might involve:

Walking.
Friends.
A couple of holidays.
Family.
Football.
The dog.
A nice garden.
Reading.
Good food.
Interesting days out.

And the freedom to decide what happens tomorrow.

That’s a perfectly good life.

The measure isn’t how impressive retirement looks from the outside.

It’s whether you actually enjoy living it.

Build a Portfolio of Life

One thing I wouldn’t do is make retirement dependent on a single activity.

Imagine retirement is entirely about golf.

Then your health changes and you can’t play.

Or everything revolves around grandchildren.

Then they get older and naturally start doing their own thing.

Perhaps it’s all about travel.

Then circumstances make travelling difficult.

Or your entire social life depends on your partner.

Life changes.

A more resilient retirement contains several different things.

Think of it as a portfolio of life.

Something That Gets You Moving

Walking, cycling, swimming, gardening, golf.

Something Social

Friends, family, volunteering, clubs, sport.

Something That Interests Your Brain

Learning, projects, reading, creating, building.

Something That’s Simply Fun

Music, cinema, football, food, gaming, photography.

Something That Gets You Out of the House

Trips, walks, coffee, classes, volunteering.

Something You Enjoy Together

Travel, meals, days out, shared interests.

Something That’s Yours

Your friends. Your hobby. Your project. Your space.

None of those has to occupy huge amounts of time.

Together, though, they create options.

And options are valuable.

Test Drive Retirement Before You Get There

Here’s the bit you can do now.

Don’t wait for retirement to discover whether your imagined retirement suits you.

Test pieces of it.

Think retirement will involve lots of walking?

Start walking.

Think you’ll volunteer?

Try volunteering occasionally.

Imagine you’ll spend much more time with friends?

Start seeing them more often.

Want to learn photography?

Try it.

Think you’ll travel independently around Europe?

Take a shorter trip and see how it feels.

Want to spend retirement gardening?

See whether you actually enjoy gardening rather than simply liking the idea of a beautiful garden.

Want to learn guitar?

Borrow one before buying the expensive one you’ve been looking at.

This isn’t about pretending to be retired while you’re still working. It’s about gathering information.

You might discover something you thought you’d love isn’t for you.

Excellent.

That’s useful.

You might discover something completely unexpected that you can’t get enough of.

Even better.

What If I Genuinely Don’t Know What I Want?

That’s fine.

In fact, it’s probably more common than people admit.

You’ve potentially spent 30 or 40 years organising life around work, mortgages, children, bills and responsibilities.

Then somebody asks:

“What would you like to do with the next 25 years?”

That’s quite a question.

You don’t need an immediate answer.

Try things.

Six weeks of a class.
One volunteering session.
A weekend somewhere different.
A new walking route.
A project.
A club.
An old hobby you haven’t touched for twenty years.

Something you’ve never tried.

Keep what works.

Drop what doesn’t.

Retirement doesn’t have to arrive fully designed.

Your interests will change.

Your circumstances will change.