I am "retired to win" -- and in large part to me that means being retired to have fun and enjoy myself. I definitely have the money to spend on that*. And I should have the time to go spend the money. But up to now I have had a problem allowing myself the time to have fun. If I just go with the flow, I default to "productive" use of my time. Having fun gets pushed aside. But I have finally found a way to overcome that. And here it is.
It seems as if I have always lived by the daily planner and the to-do list. And I can see that being retired is not changing that. So, instead of fighting it, I am using that ingrained habit to make sure I do have fun -- instead of always reaching for the next chore that needs doing. I am scheduling time for fun.
I still plan my week day by day. But now I plan fun time into each day. Productive time is limited to the morning (8am to noon) and late afternoon (5 to 7pm). In between, I now have given myself a daily scheduled five-hour block for fun. And on my weekly planner, I plan ahead what I will do for fun during each of those five-hour blocks.
I have also extended the scheduled-fun-time idea so that I now have a designated fully free day each week, a 3-day getaway time block each month, and a week-long trip block every 3 months. Scheduling the free time this way "forces" me to make a plan for what to do, where to go, and how much of my discretionary fund** to spend.
Is this working? Yes, as long as I follow the planning process. If I fail to plan my fun out, the time fritters away and I fall back to the chore doing and paper shuffling. So this is a work in progress for me. And what I will do to make myself accountable for having fun (which, I know, is weird) is going to be to put up a My Plan For Fun page on my blog and update it on a weekly basis to track what I have planned for fun that week and what fun I have actually had.
*A Discretionary Fund, Not a Discretionary Budget:
http://retired-to-win.savingadvice.com/2014/03/29/a-discreti...
**A $5000 No-Guilt Spending Spree!:
http://retired-to-win.savingadvice.com/2014/03/24/a-5000-no-...