Tag: habits

The Last of Life II Structure and Habits

~ purplesage41 ~ 3 Comments

One of the most dramatic changes in retirement is the loss of external order and structure which has followed us from kindergarten on. Especially if there is no transition, we can find ourselves going from too little free time to too much.  Many new retirees fill their calendars with travel, bridge, volunteer work, gardening, or social events.  That stage lasts anywhere from six months to two years, by which time most people have either figured out a new pattern or, in some cases, gone back to work.

The challenge facing a retiree is to create their own order and structure.  One of the great insights of behavioral economics is that having too many choices is almost as bad as having none at all.  Economist Herbert Simon argued that what suits our human brains best is “bounded rationality”—making our choices about how to use our resources of time and money from a limited set of options.  Defining that set is one of the first tasks of retirement life. (He won a Nobel Prize in Economics for his work.)

There are several ways to create order and structure to free you from constantly fretting over what to do next. The key is to create habits—things that you do on specific days or at specific times. (I play Wordle and do a sudoku puzzle and the daily word jumble to jumpstart my brain each morning).  Exercise is a habit that is time constrained for some, flexible for others.  I used to go to Jazzercise three times a week at 8. During the pandemic I made a permanent shift to a thrice weekly neighborhood cardio class, while the other four days I do Jazzercise online at a convenient morning time.

About three years ago I set out on a determined effort to lose the weight I had acquired from some very difficult periods of my life, including the death of my husband of 53 years and my closest woman friend six months later. I tried a variety of approaches before choosing Noom, a weight management program based on cultivating new habits. Among those recommended habits are a 12-hour overnight fast, drinking more fluids, and only eating when you feel hungry. What I learned from Noon helped me adopt new habits in many dimensions of my life beyond eating, exercising, and weight management.

That broader application of changing habits really registered with me because I had been reading about the role of habits in freeing our attention from distractions and allowing us to focus. It’s kind of like downloading part of the brain to an external hard drive and letting certain parts of your day be driven by autopilot rather than a constant demand for choices. Being faced with too many choices, according to Simon, means either making poor choices or not choosing at all.

I was raised in a culture of habit.  Women like my mother often followed a regular schedule of meals, so they wouldn’t have to waste time each day planning dinner.  If this is Monday, we eat spaghetti.  They also followed a regular schedule of household chores. If this is Monday, it must be laundry day.  Wednesday? The weekly grocery shopping. My mother also made a habit of ironing five pieces a day, but that was before permanent press and clothes dryers. What I learned from her ironing habit was to break larger and more daunting tasks into manageable portions and do them over time rather than all at once.  For example, as a writer, I commit to at least 500 words a day.

I start each day at about 5 or 5:30 by writing in my journal (that doesn’t count toward the 500 words!), reading the newspaper online, checking my email, and laying out my plans for the day. Those plans normally include some practice of my vocation (writing, teaching,  mentoring, and organizational leadership), house and yard tasks and projects, exercise, connecting with others either as individuals or in a group , and learning.  Learning may be taking a class but more commonly is reading or watching a video on Wondrium, the streaming version of the Great Courses. And no, this blog is not a paid political endorsement for either Noon or Wondrium or Jazzercise.  They are just examples.

I make a point to include something that is fun most days—wine with a friend or friends, a walk in the Botanical garden, a play or concert.  Unless I have an evening meeting, I generally quit around five or 5:30 to have dinner, read, and watch television before going to bed at 9. I have always been early to bed, early to rise—no virtue there, just being aware of my biorhythm.

 I have changed my eating habits, but thanks to a friend who taught classes in downsizing I have also picked up a habit that gets me through the more tedious activities.  Set the timer for fifteen minutes and choose a task or a room or a project and do it for fifteen minutes. Cleaning a junk drawer. Vacuuming the rug. Cleaning the car. Weeding the garden.  When the bell rings on your smart watch or phone or oven timer, you can quit, or finish, or set it again.  

Those are my habits. They are probably not yours, although some of them (like the fifteen-minute timer) might be useful.  Rather, the  message is that retirement is an opportunity to identify, reconsider, and adapt your habits in ways that enrich your life. I invite you to create an order and structure that works for you while feeling free to take a day off now and then from part or all of it. Reworking your habits, one at a time, will enrich your life and free you from an externally imposed structure to create one that is uniquely yours Feel to comment with any tips of your own!

In my previous blog, I said there would be only two in this series.  I was wrong.  It is three. Or maybe four. Watch this space.

Processes, Outcomes, and Goals

~ purplesage41 ~ Leave a comment

A few years ago. I was in a leadership retreat at which we talked about our efforts to address systemic racism.  As one of the ”elders” in the group, I shared a description of some projects in the late 1990s and early 2000s called Unlearning racism, which included honoring black WWII veterans, forming a sister congregation relationship with a more diverse group, spending time with leaders in the local African American community to see how we could be connective and supportive, etc.  When I finished my description, the person running the meeting asked, “And how many  new African-American members did you acquire?” “None, “ I said, “That wasn’t the point.”  I understood where he was coming from He and I and others have sat through countless long-range planning sessions and been told to have goals with measurable outcomes. I am an economist, and my discipline does put a lot of emphasis on measurable outcomes.  But something was tickling in my brain that we were going about this in the wrong way. Part of it was that some of the best outcomes are not quantifiable.  But something else wasn’t quite right.

Recently I was watching a series of lectures (Great Courses) on fitness and aging in which the instructor was also talking about setting goals.  And measurable ones, at that.  But the difference was that her idea of goals was not outcomes.  Not pounds lost.  Not blood pressure measurement. The goals were changed habits, which are also measurable.  Instead of pounds lost and blood pressure measurement, goals were how many times a week did I exercise? How far did I walk? Did I give my digestive system its much-needed 12 hour fast between dinner and breakfast? How often did my meal include a serving of fruits or vegetables? How many calories or carbs was I taking in and how many was I burning?  The difference was that these goals were things I could control, habits that I could work to develop. They, too, are often measurable. I can’t control outcomes, even though these better habits should make my preferred outcomes more likely.

The instructor’s focus was on fitness—physical, mental, and spiritual health that will lead to good outcomes like inner peace, longevity, less illness, and a slowing of the aging process. Or for concrete thinkers, weight loss and lower blood pressure. I started thinking about how we might apply processes or habits versus outcomes thinking about goals to those long-range planning processes in terms of other aspects of life, particularly organizational life. Typically, organizations will have concrete outcomes they want—more members, more people showing up at events, and more successful fundraising are common ones, all very measurable. But also not something we can control.  

What if the goals were about who we are and what we do, about identity and process rather than outcomes? What if we adapt that great quote from the move Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come.”  Instead, we could build what our vision says is the right thing to build—the right place, the right time, the right design—by listening to the people who are already here and contributing their time and their presence and their money. And perhaps even back up from that process to remind ourselves why we exist as a community and how building our particular field of dreams serves that reason for being.  If building ( a space, a garden, a program, a project) means that they do indeed come, so there are more members and more money, that’s fine.  But if that project leads to unanticipated outcomes, to better connections to other groups and communities, to a more joyful experience of being together, to a better understanding of what matters, those are good outcomes too. They are just very hard to measure.

So next time you make New Year’s resolutions (and a new year can start any time), or are part of a planning and goal setting process, try to focus on what you can control—the inputs, the processes, the habits or ways of working together.  The outcomes you want may or may not follow, but  you may get some unexpected benefits along the way..