10 Brilliant Ideas To Overcome Boredom In Retirement

What are your plans for retirement? Do you have a big bucket list you want to tick off? Once you complete this list, what are you going to do then?

Do you think you might get bored during retirement or have you already retired and are now bored? This video and post are for you.

Here are 10 guaranteed ideas on how to avoid and overcome boredom during retirement.

You’re Not Alone!

It may be surprising to you, but there are actually quite a lot of people who experience boredom during retirement. Perhaps this is even you? Don’t worry, you are not alone!

Many people who experience boredom, loneliness, and under-stimulation in retirement are generally people who had a very busy work life prior to retirement.

Once they retire, they lose their structured work life and often also a significant part of their social network. Going from this routine to suddenly no routine can impact people in different ways.

It is important to overcome this stage and break the routine in order to find happiness and satisfaction in retirement. The key is to find something in your life that challenges you mentally, physically, and even creatively.

Continue reading for our ideas to get you thinking about what this could be for you. We know that some of them you may have heard of before, but nevertheless, it is worth giving it a try. Afterwards, you could find yourself living a very stimulating retirement!

Declutter

Now that you have all of this free time, why don’t you declutter your home? This can benefit you in several ways:

• Creates a sense of confidence and self-efficiency
• Feels energising
• Reduces anxiety
• Allows your mind to wander, and maybe even declutter your brain
• Reduces relationship and family tension
• You may even find lost treasure!

So while you do this, let your mind wander, and you may find something you want to do after you finish decluttering.

While going through your things, you should make 3 piles. One to keep, one to give away or sell, and the rubbish pile.

Once you are finished decluttering and organising, you could hold a garage sale and sell what you don’t want or need anymore. This is also a great way to make a little extra cash.

Discover New Things

Of course, you have heard this before, but we’ll repeat it because we believe it is true: you are never too old to learn something new!

There are so many options where you can find classes or courses to learn what you are interested in. Maybe you always wanted to study art or history but never got around to it due to limited career options? Or perhaps you want to learn a new skill or language? Well, now you can easily do it!

Many universities offer reduced fees or even free courses for retirees who only wish to attend the courses but not take the exams. You can ask the university near you. They may offer it, but it’s not usually something they advertise frequently.

Another option is the University of the Third Age, which you may have heard of. It is an international movement that aims for the education and stimulation of mainly retired members of the community.

They offer courses that are considerably cheap or even free, and they have a lot of options to choose from. In Sydney, for example, they run courses for French, Italian, and Spanish at different levels so you can progress with your learning.

Twice a month they hold a Poetry Club where they discuss poems and books, or an art history lesson where they look at the world’s most famous artists over the centuries.

As you can see, they have something for everyone! We highly recommend looking into it.

Get Active

This one may not appeal to you, but did you know that you can combine point 2 and 3 by signing up for some dancing lessons?

Dancing is known to have a positive effect on your brain. It affects several brain functions at once; rational, musical, kinaesthetic, and emotional. It even has a positive impact on your memory and gets you socialising – in our opinion, you can only win!

Besides dancing, there are numerous other ways to get active, some of which include:

• Taking a leisurely walk each day – maybe you even have a friend to do this with
• Picking up golf or fishing
• Attending yoga, pilates, or other group exercise classes
• Swimming – a great-all round physical exercise

There are plenty of other ways you can get active, and it doesn’t have to be alone. Picking up one of these activities with a friend is a great way to keep each other motivated while also keeping socially active, too.

Physical activity has a range of benefits for you, including lower blood pressure, reduced risk of cancer, more energy, reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, reduced risk of becoming overweight or obese, and it’s also excellent for emotional health.

Travel (With Housesitting)

This is certainly something people have in mind for the majority of their retirement. However, not everyone has the funds to go on regular cruises or fly to a faraway country.

Fortunately, this does not have to hold you back. Do you remember the garage sale we previously mentioned? You can use this money to save up for travelling, or another way to make travelling more affordable is by doing house sitting.

This concept is straightforward; you travel somewhere and stay at someone else’s house while they are away, which sometimes also includes taking care of their pets. This would mean free accommodation.

If this sounds interesting to you, we recommend going online and taking a look at the websites which facilitate those deals. There is TrustedHouseSitters (Australia & international) and Rover (USA and UK), two of the most popular sites.

If you would like to go to a specific country, you can search for house sitting websites in this country directly.

Research Your Heritage

Touching on point 1 (decluttering), while you declutter, you might come across some old family pictures. You might not recognize someone in these photos.

You could follow this up and try to find out some more information about that person or your family history in general. This can turn into a wonderful hobby, and it would give you something interesting to tell the next generation.

Ancestry is a great way to learn more about your ancestry, understand your genealogy, and takes you back generations to discover hidden family secrets and stories.

Volunteer

This is not a new idea, but it is an extremely valid one. Through volunteering, you are not only helping others but also helping yourself become more socially interactive and mentally stimulated – you’re killing two birds with one stone!

Op-shops and other charity organisations are always looking for volunteers, or you can also volunteer at a zoo or farm if you prefer the company of animals.

Another option is to go through one of the many volunteer websites. Go Overseas and Volunteer HQ allows you to work all over the world, as well as Global Work and Travel. Overall, it’s an excellent opportunity to create a new social network, make friends, and maybe even travel.

Mentoring Or Teaching

At your age, you surely have accumulated a lot of knowledge relevant to what you did in your work life or general life experiences. We think it’s a great idea to pass this knowledge onto the next generation, and in doing so, you could become a mentor or teacher.

How do you actually do this, though? To become a professional mentor based on your professional skills and expertise, you are best to go through your work-related network or organisation.

If you would like to become a mentor to young people, then you could join a network such as the one on the Mentoring (USA) or Mentor Support Network (Australia) websites.

Or, perhaps you are more interested in teaching? You can then contact your local school and see if they need teaching assistants or you could list your services on websites such as Wyzant (USA) or Tutor Finder.

Part-Time Work

If you really miss that work-life structure, you can consider going back to work part-time. This wouldn’t be for the money, but purely for the daily structure, social interactions, and mental stimulation that you get from it.

You should find something that you enjoy doing, and it won’t even feel like work! Another idea is to start your own little business. You could provide content writing, voice over, or proofreading services, for example, on an outsourcing platform such as fiverr or Upwork.

I mentioned those 2 services in particular because these are simple tasks that most people can do, but of course, you can offer other services that are perhaps linked to your previous work experience. This could be accounting, marketing, or even design.

The final part-time work idea we have for you is Airbnb. Did you know that Airbnb offers not only accommodation but also experiences? They use the term “Host an Experience“.

So, for example, you could offer guided tours in your home town. Does the area you live in have a very famous dish? You can offer cooking experiences where tourists get to cook and eat this unique dish.

There are so many possibilities, we’ll leave it up to you to decide. Let your imagination run free!

Meet-Up

Most of these ideas we have shared have one thing in common if you haven’t noticed. Most of them get you to interact with other people. Socialising and connecting with other people is one of the main key points to overcome boredom.

If you think that this is a good idea, but our suggestions thus far have not piqued your interest, then we suggest taking a look at the website Meet Up. This is a website designed to meet like-minded people; to find others who share the same interests as you do.

This could be a book or movie club, exercise groups, hiking communities, or other people who like to go bird watching. On this website, you can find anything!

If there is no group there that matches your interests, then you can start your own group through a straightforward process. Go take a look and see what you can come up with.

Blogging

The final idea we want to share with you is blogging. This may seem a little peculiar, but it really does work. When we started Retire On, we worked and still work with two retired friends.

They both enjoy writing, so we suggested them to start their own blog and make some money using affiliate marketing.

If you are unsure what affiliate marketing is, then take a look at our video/post which explains it all for you. Getting back on topic, the primary reason we wanted to share the blogging idea is that the experience has been very rewarding for our retired friends.

They have found a new purpose in their lives, and both agree that it has opened a whole new world for them. If you are interested in doing this, then you can send us an email to contact@retireon.com.au – we are more than happy to host your blog on our website!

That concludes our 10 ideas to beat boredom in retirement. We understand that it is not easy to find something that will give purpose to your life, but we hope that these ideas give you a starting point.

You are welcome to join the discussion below and share your experiences with boredom in retirement and how you hopefully found a way out of it!

If you would like to educate yourself about everything else retirement-related further, then we recommend subscribing to our YouTube channel and regularly checking RetireOn’s free learning articles.