In this week’s episode, how can you stay motivated and productive in retirement?  You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN   Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin The CP Learning Centre Membership Programme The Working With… Weekly Newsletter The FREE Beginners Guide To Building Your Own COD System Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page   Script | 304 Hello, and welcome to episode 304 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. We often think time management and productivity are the realms of students and busy people trying to maintain a growing career and balance a growing family. The truth is once we begin making decisions for ourselves, how we use our time becomes a deciding factor in what we do each day.  This means once we leave the workforce and take full responsibility for what we do each day, managing our time becomes even more important. If you think about it, when we are in work, there’s often a time we need to be in the office, an array of meetings and deadlines for projects that need to be completed. These deadlines and commitments are often given to us by our bosses and customers.  Once you retire, those deadlines are no longer handed out by bosses and customers. Now you have complete control over what you do each day. You can go to bed and wake up whenever you like; you no longer need to wait for the weekends or evenings to meet up with friends, and all those activities you promised yourself you would do once you retire can now be done.  Just because you are retired and no longer working does not mean you no longer need to worry about how you manage your time. In many ways, now you have complete control over what you do each day time management and productivity practices are more important than ever.  And that neatly leads me to this week’s question, and to give you the question it’s time to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice.  This week’s question comes from Kai Yee. Kai Yee asks: Hi Carl, how would you suggest a person apply your systems after they have retired? Hi Kai Yee, thank you for your question. One of the things I’ve learned is that no matter where you are in life, there will always be things to do. In many ways, when you are working, managing your time is much easier because your work gives you structure to your day. You have a time to wake up, a regular place to be at a set time each day and a finish time.  When you retire, that structure disappears, and it can be disorientating. You no longer need to wake up to be somewhere at a given time, and without a plan or a reason to get up, time will disappear incredibly fast.  So the first thing you should do is to give yourself a solid structure which means bringing your calendar into play.  What do you want time for each day? You could begin with your wake-up and going-to-sleep times. Get these fixed into your calendar. If I were in the fortunate position to retire today, I would set my wake-up time at 8:30 am and bedtime at 1:00 am. I love the quiet between 11 and 1 am, and I get a lot of reading or learning done at that time. Your wake-up and going to bed times will act as the bookends for your day.  One of the most important things you can do when you retire is to find time each day for exercise. And as I have mentioned before, exercise does not necessarily mean going to the gym or out for a run. All it means is movement.  When you don’t have any commitments for the day, it can be tempting to wake up, make your morning beverage sit down and not do anything all day. Time will just slip away.  I experience this frequently when I head over to Ireland for the Christmas holidays. I don’t have a s