The biggest change has been the mornings. For years, I’ve been shocked into wakefulness by e-mail, text, and phone messages. The global world of business means that there are no off hours, only the time I set my phone to Do Not Disturb. Breakfast was time to triage the urgent messages and fit response time into my schedule. Mornings were hurried.
Up until now, I’ve had an old-school career: more than 30 years with the same company in various roles. The company always treated me well and I had the chance to work with creative, talented and interesting people. But the sense of being in a hurry became my overwhelming feeling whatever I was doing at home or work. I’m proud of the career I’ve had but also convinced that this is not how I want to live my next 30 years. I’ll spend the next one or two years to find a lifestyle I want then figure out a career, rather than the other way around. At the same time, I want concentrated time with my kids and friends to focus on my personal life.
Mornings have turned into a completely different experience. After the rush of kids heading off to school, I use the morning to ease into my day and proactively schedule my time. I realize now how my day was often determined by the needs of others and what a luxury it is to set my own priorities and plan a day based around my personal goals. For the upcoming months, many of those priorities are trips with family and friends.
Surprisingly, the biggest concern I’ve gotten from friends is, “Won’t you get bored?” I’ve created a long list of things I want to do or be so I find that hard to believe but I’ll share my experiences here. I’ve spoken to many people considering the same kind of break and hope I can at least entertain with how I used my time. Maybe after some time to myself, I can even share some things I’ve learned.
I’m using a standard GoDaddy/Wordpress site with no customizations. Theme is the Brilliant Plus theme. I don’t want to spend a lot of time maintaining the site platform so I kept it simple!