For Elaine Belansky, a former university employee who transitioned into coaching other women through the retirement transition, this realization struck close to home early in September. Sitting down to map out what she truly wanted her retirement to be built around, Belansky jotted down a concise, fulfilling list of priorities: friends, art, nature, writing, family, and health.
However, when she immediately checked her calendar to see how her actual week aligned with those core values, she discovered a stark disconnect. Coaching-related tasks had stealthily colonized the vast majority of her weekly hours. As someone who makes a living guiding women through this exact life phase, Belansky admitted she should have known better.
This friction—the persistent gap between how people intend to spend their retirement and how their days actually unfold—is a universal challenge. Belansky notes that women frequently reach out to her struggling with this exact dilemma. Whether they are still in the workforce and dreading the looming question of post-retirement productivity, or already retired and sitting with a morning cup of coffee while mindlessly scrolling through a phone, the struggle to give shape and meaning to unstructured time is remarkably common.
According to Belansky, looking too far into the future or staring blankly into the abstract concept of a dream retirement rarely provides the answers. Instead, she suggests that the keys to a fulfilling retirement are hidden in plain sight within a week that has already been lived. A real, concrete week serves as a diagnostic tool, revealing two vital pieces of information: what activities genuinely bring a person joy, and what specific habits or obligations prevent those joys from fitting into daily life.
What Was Crowding Out My List
Last year, Belansky stepped away from her long-term career at a university and deliberately chose to incorporate coaching women through the retirement transition into her own post-career chapter. It was a role she genuinely loved, and conversations with her clients rightfully occupied a top spot on her personal priority list.
The problem, however, was not the coaching sessions themselves, but the endless peripheral tinkering that grew up around them. Like many professionals who transition from high-output environments, Belansky found herself caught in an invisible loop of perfectionism. She would rewrite a newsletter for the twentieth time, endlessly tweak a blog post, fiddle with her website design, polish a free guide, and then immediately seek out the next minor detail to improve.
On the exact day she made her foundational list of life priorities, Belansky made a telling entry in her personal journal regarding her burgeoning business: "I’m constantly finding ways to improve and it’s exhausting me." Administrative and operational coaching tasks had quietly expanded to consume far more of her retirement than she had ever intended to give them, crowding out the art classes, social meetups with friends, and restorative moments she had explicitly planned to enjoy.
What One Good Day Showed Me
A couple of days after confronting her overflowing calendar, Belansky experienced a day that felt completely aligned with her desires. Recognizing the value of the experience, she documented the sequence of events to pinpoint what she later referred to as her operational "recipe."
On that particular day, the ordering of her time made all the difference. Before sitting down to address her professional obligations, she prioritized personal connection and creativity. She began with a morning coffee, followed by a leisurely walk with a friend, and carved out dedicated time for knitting and creative art. Next to her journal entry about drafting her newsletter that day, she emphasized a crucial realization: "And only then did I write a newsletter. THIS IS SO IMPORTANT!!!"
On a typical, less satisfying week, her schedule operated in reverse. Coaching tasks and administrative tweaking went in first, and the activities she loved were relegated to the margins, squeezed in hastily at the end of the day if time permitted.
Every single ingredient in that successful day was already present on her original list of retirement priorities. What the experience ultimately taught her was that the sequence mattered just as much as the content. When professional and administrative tasks take precedence, they inevitably expand to fill the entire day. Conversely, when personal joys and well-being are scheduled first, professional tasks naturally remain in healthy proportion. Viewing her schedule through the metaphor of a recipe, Belansky realized that the ingredients are vital, but the order in which they are added dictates the final outcome.
Your Answer Is in Your Last Week
Trying to answer the abstract question of what brings joy can often leave people feeling empty or tongue-tied. Belansky points to the definition of joy offered by researcher and author Brené Brown, who describes it as "an intense feeling of deep spiritual connection, pleasure, and appreciation." While that definition resonates deeply, tracking down that feeling in the abstract is notoriously difficult.
Asking a more grounded, retrospective question—such as when a person felt that warmth and connection during the previous week, even if only for a few fleeting minutes—yields far better results because the individual was actually present for it. For those who already have a clear sense of what brings them joy, the subsequent question must be what obstacles intercepted that time and diverted it elsewhere.
To help bridge this gap, Belansky advocates for a simple weekly scoring exercise. Whether an individual is still navigating the final years of a career and evaluating their life outside of work, or already fully retired and looking back over a seemingly uneventful stretch of days, reviewing the previous week provides tangible clues. Even seemingly minor moments, such as a casual phone call with an old friend or a quiet walk around the neighborhood, deserve recognition and space on the ledger.
What I’m Doing About My Own Weeks
Reflecting on her own ongoing journey, Belansky notes that achieving and maintaining balance is an active, continuous practice rather than a permanent destination. While wrapping up an article while traveling—working from an Irish pub while her husband watched a football match—she playfully scored the moment as a solid plus 3.5, acknowledging that writing to help other women brings her immense satisfaction, provided it does not crowd out the rest of her existence.
Returning home to a calendar fully booked with client sessions—a reality she welcomes—required deliberate structural intervention. To prevent her work from taking over once again, she began intentionally blocking out calendar time for art lessons, gym sessions, hiking, a newly joined women’s group, and social time with friends.
To maintain this delicate equilibrium, Belansky relies on simple daily checklists to structure her upcoming days when she senses her old habits creeping back in. Recognizing that she needs a physical reminder to protect her time for joy underscores how deeply ingrained overwork can be, even in retirement.
The overarching lesson, according to Belansky, is that nobody needs to have their entire retirement mapped out in advance. By simply paying attention to what already feels nourishing in daily life and evaluating the sequence of the days that feel most successful, individuals can slowly learn how to curate a post-career life that honors both their professional contributions and their personal well-being.
