This morning, a small wave of fear caught me off guard.
I’m more than six months into retirement, and I’m enjoying it. I love slow mornings. I love not having meetings. I love the lack of daily pressure. And yet, out of nowhere, I found myself thinking: What if this changes?
People often talk about the first stretch of retirement as a “honeymoon phase.” That phrase popped into my head, followed quickly by another worry: What if I eventually get bored with all this spaciousness? What if the art class I’m loving loses its spark? What if I start to feel lonely or unmoored?
Later that same morning, things went sideways in a very ordinary way.
While I know exactly what helps me start the day feeling centered – journaling, reading, sometimes a guided meditation – I didn’t do any of that. Instead, my husband was already immersed in the news, sharing his concerns. I checked email. And within minutes, I was pulled into my other post-retirement role: helping care for my 95-year-old dad as he recovers from a serious fall.
I’m deeply grateful to be there for him. It’s meaningful. But it’s also demanding. By mid-morning, I felt rushed, scattered, and oddly behind – despite the fact that no deadlines were looming and no one was waiting for me to turn something in.
That’s when it clicked: this is what unstructured days can do.
Why Open Time Can Feel Unsettling
Retirement is supposed to feel freeing. No calendar. No deadlines. No one telling you where to be.
And yet, many women feel off-balance once the structure of work disappears.
For years, work organized our days. There were projects to move forward, colleagues waiting for input, students or clients expecting follow-up, and a built-in sense of when the day had “counted.” Without that underlying rhythm, time can start to feel slippery.
My coaching clients describe it in familiar ways:
- “I’m financially ready, but I don’t know how my days will actually look.”
- “I want freedom, but I don’t want to drift.”
- “I worry my world will shrink.”
This shows up most often for women who spent decades managing multiple roles at once: demanding careers, caregiving for children or parents, volunteer commitments, and emotional labor that often went unnoticed. Retirement doesn’t erase that complexity. It removes the structure that used to help organize it.
And when there’s no rhythm, something else often fills the space: checking email one more time, scrolling the news, saying yes to errands or favors, or carrying a low-grade sense that you should be doing something – even if you can’t say what.
Enjoyment Feels More Reachable Than Joy
One client said something recently that stayed with me. After a long career and a series of health and family challenges, she told me that choosing joy as a goal felt unrealistic. The word felt heavy and out of reach.
Then she landed on a different word: enjoyment.
Not constant happiness. Not a perfectly curated life. Just moments of enjoyment – walking her dogs, taking in the desert landscape, lingering over a conversation with a new friend.
That distinction matters. Most women aren’t looking to fill their calendars or reinvent themselves. They want days that feel steady, satisfying, and alive – without pressure.
And enjoyment tends to show up more easily when days have a bit of shape – not a plan, just something to lean into.
What Actually Helps When Days Feel Undefined
When many women hear the word structure, they imagine schedules, rigid routines, and being boxed in. That’s not what most women want in retirement. Too much structure feels confining. Too little leaves them feeling unmoored.
What tends to help is a combination of anchors and rhythms.
What Are Anchors?
Anchors are small, repeatable touchpoints that help the day feel grounded and familiar. They’re often personal and simple:
- reading a book with your coffee before the day fills up
- walking outside
- exercising
- journaling
- checking in with yourself about the day ahead
What Are Rhythms?
Rhythms operate at a bigger scale. They give the week some shape without locking it down:
- Themed days, where one day leans toward social connection, another toward learning or creativity, and another toward contributing skills or finishing something that matters to you.
- Energy-based rhythms, with more demanding activities grouped together and other days intentionally lighter.
- Anchor-first days, where one meaningful anchor happens early and the rest of the day stays open.
- Bookend rhythms, with a consistent start or close to the day while the middle remains flexible.
These patterns help your days feel intentional rather than accidental – and more like your own.
A Simple Experiment to Try
If your days have been feeling scattered, try this.
Choose one rhythm that feels supportive to you right now. You don’t need to analyze it or pick the “best” one. Just notice which option you’re drawn to.
Once you’ve chosen a rhythm, anchor it lightly:
- Pick one anchor that helps you feel like yourself (5–20 minutes is plenty).
- Add one meaningful block that fits the rhythm you chose.
- Leave the rest of the day open.
For example, on a day that leans toward connection, your anchor might be a quiet cup of coffee and a few pages of reading in the morning. Your meaningful block could be lunch with a friend or a long phone call you’ve been meaning to make. The rest of the day stays unscheduled.
That’s it.
You’re not trying to design the perfect day or solve retirement all at once. You’re noticing what steadies you, what drains you, and what makes the day feel more livable – or even enjoyable.
A Realistic Word About Health
Health challenges can interrupt plans, limit energy, and make enjoyment harder than we expected.
At the same time, retirement often brings something many women haven’t had in decades: time. Time to move more intentionally, rest without guilt, attend appointments without rushing, and recover without pushing through exhaustion.
This is where rhythm becomes especially important. When days already have some shape, health disruptions don’t automatically unravel everything. There’s something to return to, something steady to adapt around, rather than starting from scratch every time something changes.
Why “Watering Your Own Garden First” Matters Here
When days are undefined, it’s incredibly easy to default to other people’s needs – especially for women who’ve spent a lifetime being reliable, helpful, and responsive. Without clear rhythms of your own, your time gets claimed before you’ve had a chance to claim it yourself.
Learning to water your own garden first is what creates the rhythm that open days lack.
Many women tell me they appreciate the permission they get through my writing and our coaching sessions – permission to take themselves seriously, to protect time, and to design days that support their own wellbeing. I wish women didn’t need that permission in the first place.
But if that’s part of the learning curve, I’m glad to offer it.
A Place to Start
If parts of this article felt familiar, you’re not imagining things – many women struggle with open time in ways they didn’t expect.
I created a free Retirement Vision Starter Kit to help you gently explore what actually steadies you when your days feel open and undefined. It includes a few short reflections and low-pressure experiments to help you notice what gives your days energy, meaning, and a sense of flow.
It takes about 20 minutes. You can do it all at once or come back to it over a few days – whatever feels supportive.
Download the free Retirement Vision Starter Kit here.
Let’s Have a Conversation:
What’s the hardest part of open time for you right now – having too much of it, not enough structure, or something else entirely?
