Brain Dead, Unproductive, & Feeling Useless
I retired about six years ago from a busy law practice as a sole practitioner. For the first several years after retiring, I did whatever I felt like doing. After the newness of retirement wore off, I felt bored, lethargic, and unproductive, a mental slug. Something needed to change.
It’s not unusual at all for retirees to feel bored and irrelevant.
Many think of retirement as the time of life when you are done with work, an extended vacation where it’s time to kick back and relax. It’s true that when they first retire, most retirees experience for about a year what retirement researcher Ken Dychtwald calls the “honeymoon period,” when they feel a sense of freedom and liberation.
However, once that year is over, it’s not unusual for retirees to feel bored and irrelevant, sometimes for decades with longer lifetimes. Research shows that adjusting to retirement is difficult for many people, who report boredom, anxiety, restlessness, and feelings of uselessness and being unproductive.
As Carol Benton writes, “Although simple relaxation is nice, retirees often want to become involved in meaningful activities.” A nine-month study of retirees found that “Retirees with a strong sense of purpose are happier, healthier, and live longer.”
Now, I feel productive, fulfilled, and happy. I want to live a thoughtful, productive, intentional life, not just follow whatever is easiest or feels good at the moment. I have a system now to proactively focus my attention on tasks and projects that I consider important and that grow out of the life roles and values that I hold.
What changed?
1. What’s Important to Me? The Why of Productivity
My first step in changing my life was to define what was important to me. The key questions for me to start with were, (1) “What is most important to me?,” and (2) “What work can I do that reflects my values and allows me to feel productive and fulfilled?”
It’s often assumed by writers that productivity is its own reward and justifies its own existence. But I think it’s essential to ask, what is productivity in service of? Why be productive? What value is it if I become highly productive in doing things that don’t matter to me?
Productivity only has value to me if it’s done in service of tasks or projects that are important to me. Without that basis, it has no value. Likewise, productivity apps only have value if they function to help me complete tasks or projects that are important to me.
a. “What are Your Values?” or “What is Your Life Vision?” Never Worked for Me
In the past, at group retreats or in reading personal guides, I’ve attempted to figure out what’s important to me by using traditional exercises that ask questions like, “What are your values?” or, “What is your life mission?” I didn’t find these approaches at all helpful for me, and I could never adequately answer those questions.
It’s always irritated me when personal development systems start out with the assumption that everyone should have an overarching “life vision” that is the overarching mission of their life. That’s never worked for me. My “life vision statement” regularly changes as I grow and develop in different ways. I’m lucky to have a quarterly or yearly vision statement, let alone one that covers my entire life span. Maybe some people can have a life mission statement that stays the same their entire lives, but I’m not wired that way.
In both my experience and in group exercises, I’ve found that the “pick an overarching value” approach often results in a nice-sounding generic vision statement that is too esoteric and nebulous to be of any real practical use.
For instance, in one group I participated in, an individual decided her overarching life vision was “to be loving.” While that sounds admirable, how is “to be loving” practical when deciding what actions to take on daily routine responsibilities or work where relationships with other people are not involved? I think that for something to truly be an overarching value, it must be applicable in all situations.
b. Determine What’s Important to You (Your Values) by First Identifying Your Roles
Composing a list of my values seemed too abstract and esoteric, not necessarily grounded in the truth or reality of my life. I’ve found that to get to my real values, I must first start by listing all the roles that I already have in my life.
To me, this is real, concrete, and true rather than abstract. These are the things that I spend my time and effort on and are good indicators of what I really care about.
The roles you already have in life provide a strong practical base for determining your values, and what is important in your life.
As I delve into these roles more deeply, I begin to see the values that lie behind them. I find my roles in my life provide a strong practical base for determining what is significant in my life and what I value. I likely wouldn’t be doing these things unless they were important to me.
c. David Sparks’ Process for Identifying, Defining, and Processing Your Roles
I learned the roles-based approach I am using from productivity guru David Sparks, who developed it. He describes his method to identify and define roles in his excellent video and a “Personal Retreat Planning PDF.” You can access both in his blog.
Sparks’ method starts by defining your existing roles in your life. Aspirational roles you might want to add are also listed. It takes substantial time to work through his comprehensive process to determine your roles and evaluate them. Sparks recommends you take a personal retreat by yourself, for 2-3 days, at a location away from your home and work.
When I went on such a retreat a year ago, I identified and defined relational roles such as Husband, Father, Son, and Friend. My work roles included Writer and Presenter (Teacher), and Lifelong Learner. My personal roles were Healthy Active Person, Reliable Person, and Hobbyist (which was broken down into a listing of different hobby areas).
After defining your roles, Sparks suggests you write an ideal description of the kind of person you aspire to be in each role. These ideal role descriptions are not goals to obtain, but rather idealized objectives to move toward and measure your performance and progress against.
Your ideal role descriptions are not goals to obtain, but ideals to work toward.
Next, you evaluate each of these roles with a series of “Big Questions” (see his Personal Retreat Planning PDF for the questions). Out of this process grows action steps as you see what you need to do regarding each role. These action steps become the foundation of tasks and projects that “move the needle” in accomplishing the work that you have defined as important for you.
For more details about the process, and my experiences during the retreat, see my post My Experiences and Tips for Doing a Roles-Based Personal Retreat.
2. What Kind of Work Motivates Me? The What of Productivity
Once I figured out what was important to me (my roles), it was time to decide what kind of work I wanted to do to further my progress in each role. To do this, I needed to know my personality and what kind of work motivates me.
Some tasks and projects that grow out of a desire to live closer to our ideal role descriptions don’t require asking this question. They just come with the role. As a reliable person, for instance, I ensure I pay my bills on time. That’s a required task whether it fits my personality and whether I find it fulfilling to pay bills.
On the other hand, some roles can best be lived out by designing tasks and projects that fit my personality and the type of work I find fulfilling. That is illustrated by my role as Writer and Presenter (Teacher). In designing tasks and projects to fulfill this role, it was valuable for me to consider my personality and the type of work I find motivating and fulfilling. As a result, I started projects I thought would best fit me, such as starting two blogs and committing to do monthly presentations for my community Mac/iOS group.
Reflecting on my life experiences and taking a personality profile helped me to know myself better and discover what kind of work motivates and fulfills me. As James Clear says in Atomic Habits, “Once we realize our strengths, we know where to spend our energy. We know which types of opportunities to look for and which types of challenges to avoid.”
Personality profiles and motivation assessments can help you to know yourself better and discover what kind of work motivates and fulfills you.
I’ve found the DISC inventory helps me understand my innate skills, strengths, and weaknesses. I know what I’m good at, and what I’m not good at. A free online Motivation Code evaluation gave me important insights into the type of work I find highly motivating and fulfilling.
Knowing what you’re good at and what type of work motivates you can help you decide what type of projects you might want to take on. I’ve discovered that I like to learn new things, research new topics, analyze and organize my thoughts, then find ways to communicate them to others in a simple and interesting way. I enjoy teaching.
I find these types of projects motivating and fulfilling, and I feel productive when I complete them. Realizing this, I seek projects with those characteristics. As a result, I created work areas for myself where I teach, in writing (two blogs) and live presentations. I feel happy, productive, and mentally engaged when I engage in this work.
Productive Work as a Retiree
I’ve defined what’s important to me by defining my roles and determining what kind of work brings me fulfillment. Following through with these insights has enabled me to bring purpose into my life as a retiree. My roles give meaning to the tasks that are in my task manager, which are grouped in my task manager under the appropriate role. I know at a glance why I’m doing what I’m doing, and which role it is serving. That gives meaning and value to my tasks.
The roles-based approach has made a huge difference in my life.
At the same time, my retirement allows me the freedom to schedule a lot of margin time to enjoy activities like hiking, backpacking, and short overnight trips. Besides, my wife won’t let me work constantly!
The roles-based approach has made a huge difference in my life. Will a roles-based system be helpful for you? Maybe so, maybe not. We’re all different and respond to different approaches. I think many people would find it much more helpful than the traditional “what are your values and life mission” approach.
If you’re interested, I encourage you to review David Sparks’ video and Personal Retreat Planner PDF. Go on a personal roles retreat and see if his process has the same benefits for you that it’s had for me.
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