Looking back / Looking forward

It is hard to believe that it is the final week of 2015. My retired self has nearly eleven months of retirement experience and I have to say that it was a good decision. I can't say that it has been an especially productive eleven months, but it has been pretty enjoyable!
One personal record that I've surpassed is in blogging. This is my 171st post at Out of My Hat this year. My previous high was 165 posts in 2008. Although my readership has dropped considerably and I rarely post anything controversial or meaningful, I'll continue to write as it is more of an exercise for my sanity than anything else.

I started out taking great care not to get too lazy or sloppy in retirement and kept up with daily exercise and even managed to shave nearly every day. (I know that shouldn't be a big deal, but daily shaving serves as a symbol of neatness and adulting in my mind.)
That daily shaving thing started to slack off about the same time the daily walking thing did somewhere around mid-year. After a relatively short time of not logging my daily food intake and not walking as often nor as much, the weight started coming back. Over the past 18 months, I've managed to slowly put back a third of the weight I lost in the previous year.
I really don't want to go back to logging everything I eat, but may have to if I cannot start to be a bit more disciplined about the what and when of eating. I am doing better about getting some exercise every day and I am trying to add more variety to my activity. I've decided to use a simple principle learned in this article. It has made getting daily exercise easier and also allows me to get some variety into my workouts. I've considered signing up for a run to have an end goal for a period of time, but haven't convinced myself (nor has anybody else convinced me) that I really need that just yet.

I'm also starting to apply that "minimum workout" principle to several other areas of discipline like mental exercise, magic, reading and writing. So far I've been practicing or watching more magic, reading for education a little each day and I have just started solving puzzles or problems of some kind. I haven't come up with a routine of any kind yet, but I do think that both the exercise and problem solving are activities best suited for the earlier part of the day. Reading and magic can easily be put off until later in the day (at least before baseball season starts!).

One older and wiser cousin shared that finding a rhythm in retirement might prove challenging. As a rule, I'm okay without a rhythm of any kind (and many would agree that I have no rhythm), but I am finding that not having a routine of any kind has its downside. Scheduling is good for getting things accomplished. After all -- if you're doing nothing, how do you know when you're finished?

So maybe a little more planning in 2016 -- especially when it comes to planning baseball games, motorcycle rides and travel!

For 2015, finish well!
For 2016, let's make it a grand year!

John <><