image by ideogram
I spent fifty years in the marine industry, working my way up through the ranks. When I finally came ashore, I thought I’d have life sorted. Pension in order, health reasonable for my age, and a wife who’d put up with my absences for four decades. Time to crack on with all those projects I’d been promising myself since the ‘80s.
Three months later, I was more adrift than I’d ever been at sea.
The irony wasn’t lost on me. I’d navigated through force nine gales, worked complex operations across four continents, spent decades where every decision mattered. Yet here I was, unable to organise a simple retirement. The loft needed clearing. The workshop I’d been planning for years remained a cluttered mess. There were grandchildren I hardly knew. My wife had a list of home improvements that would make a cargo manifest look brief.
I had all the time in the world and somehow none of it.
The Problem With Unlimited Time
At sea, everything runs on structure. Watch schedules. Port deadlines. Weather windows. Tides don’t wait because you fancy a lie-in. You learn to prioritise quickly when operations run on tight margins and people depend on everyone doing their bit properly.
Retirement? No structure whatsoever.
I’d wake at six from decades of habit, make tea, and then… what?
Everything felt equally urgent and equally pointless. I’d start clearing the loft, get distracted by old charts, decide to catalogue them, remember the garden fence needed replacing, pop down to the builders’ merchants, bump into old colleagues, return home three hours later having achieved precisely nothing.
My old chief engineer, Ken—good man, worked with him for twelve years—he had the same trouble. “I’m busier now than when I was doing back-to-back voyages,” he told me down the pub. “But I can’t tell you what I’ve actually done.”
That’s when my daughter suggested something called the Priority Ladder Technique. I was sceptical. Sounded like the sort of management consultancy nonsense we’d had inflicted on us in the ‘90s. But she’s a sensible woman—gets that from her mother—so I listened.
How It Actually Works
The Priority Ladder is refreshingly straightforward, which is probably why it works. Think of it like passage planning. You don’t plot every single course adjustment before you leave port. You identify your destination, break the voyage into manageable legs, and navigate one leg at a time.
First: Chart Everything
I wrote down every project, ambition, and vague notion I’d been carrying around. The workshop conversion. Clearing forty years of accumulated kit from the loft. That trip to Norway my wife had been mentioning. Getting properly fit again. Learning to cook something beyond beans on toast. Organising decades of photographs. Visiting old colleagues whilst we’re all still breathing.
Depressingly long list.
Second: Pick Three
This was harder than dodging fishing fleets in the North Sea. But the principle is sound: you can’t steer in multiple directions simultaneously.
After considerable thought—and input from my wife, who has a habit of being right about these things—I settled on three:
Convert the garage into a proper workshop
Get fit enough to enjoy travelling again
Sort out our finances and paperwork so my wife isn’t left in chaos when I keel over
Everything else could wait.
Third: Break It Down Into Stages
For the workshop conversion, that meant:
Clear out forty years of accumulated rubbish
Sort the electrics properly (no more extension leads everywhere)
Insulate and line the walls
Build proper workbenches and storage
Install decent lighting
Organise tools and equipment
Each stage had to be completed before moving to the next. No bodging ahead because I was keen to see the finished space.
Fourth: One Stage at a Time
The critical bit: focus on completing one stage before starting the next. Sounds obvious, but it goes against every instinct when you’re staring at a long project. You want to do it all at once.
I spent two months just clearing and sorting. Didn’t touch a power tool. Just shifted, sorted, binned, and donated. Boring as watching rust form, but necessary.
Then electrics. Nothing else. Just getting the wiring right. Three weeks of proper cable runs and a new consumer unit.
What I’ve Learned
Two years on, I’ve got a workshop that actually functions. Built a proper dining table for our daughter—first piece of furniture I’ve made since woodwork at school. I’m two stone lighter and can walk five miles without needing a sit-down. The paperwork’s organised enough that my wife won’t be cursing me from my funeral.
Here’s what made the difference: at sea, you learn that trying to do everything simultaneously gets people killed. You prioritise, you focus, you complete one task before moving to the next.
Turns out the same principle applies ashore.
The Method Works Because It’s Realistic
I’m not suggesting this is revolutionary. It’s basic seamanship applied to daily life. But it works because it forces you to be honest about what’s actually achievable and in what order things need to happen.
My mate Ken tried it last year. Picked three projects: finish his memoirs, sort out his allotment properly, and spend proper time with his grandchildren. He’s done the memoirs—eight hundred pages of maritime history that probably only his family will read, but he’s pleased as punch. The allotment’s producing enough veg to feed half the street.
If you’re recently retired and feeling a bit lost—or still working and wondering how you’ll ever get round to everything—try this. Write down three things that actually matter. Not twenty. Three. Break them into stages. Do one stage properly before moving on.
I spent four decades navigating professional waters. Turns out keeping yourself on course uses the same principles.
What are your three?
An Idea: From staring at the blank page… to actually getting paid
A few months ago, I sat there with the same thought most of us have:
“I’d love to write, but where on earth do I even start?”
I kept circling the same three questions:
Why would I write in the first place?
What would I actually write about?
And how would I turn that into something that earns money?
Here’s what I figured out (and what I wish I had from day one):
First, the why.
If you’ve ever wondered why people like me keep showing up to write, I’ve put together a free report that explains it. Grab it here.
Next, the what.
Knowing your reason is one thing, but deciding what to write about is where most people get stuck. I created a guide that shows you how to choose a niche that fits you. It’s less than a Starbucks coffee. See the guide here.
Finally, the how.
Once you know why you’re writing and what you’ll focus on, the last step is learning how to actually do it — quickly, without wasting months. I’ve broken that down into a simple process you can follow in an afternoon. For less than a burger meal, you could be publishing and earning. Find out how here.
That’s the exact path I took — and if you’ve been circling the same questions, now you’ve got the answers laid out in front of you.