For most of my working life a day had a start, a middle and an end, and stopping early felt like failing. Now I work in bursts. I write, I walk, I come back, I stop again. The benefit of stopping and starting surprised me. It is a completely different way of working.
On a walk the mind goes quiet and the body takes over. That is often when the next idea turns up, and it never turned up at a desk at four in the afternoon.
Using AI to almost write my life story taught me this. If I am honest, it is the only real learning I have done since I was 21.
Nothing else really taught me much. A little, but nothing like this. Perhaps because I am older and wiser.
If the nine-to-five has just gone
Redundancy, early retirement, gardening leave: the structure goes overnight, and the instinct is to rebuild the same day at the kitchen table. Try the other way first. Short bursts, long walks, and permission to stop. earlyretirement.guide, gardeningleave.guide and redundancy.guide each take one part of that.
Write your own
On every guide, after a couple of messages, you can tap Write my story. It turns that conversation into a chapter of your life story, in your own words, and keeps it on your device. It is how I started.