I did a trial run at retirement for a couple of years (2020-2021). And I think I came to a similar conclusion as your mom. I figured I'd learn stuff, work on projects, etc. and I certainly did some of that, but there were just too many choices to make for how to spend my time and at some point that causes a sort of paralysis of inaction. You figure you've got plenty of time to do X so might as well do it tomorrow - lots of procrastination. At some point I figured I might as well go back to work and get paid to do something.
I think my ideal would be to work something like 3 days/week - I could just do that forever if the work was moderately interesting, but there aren't a lot of programming gigs where they let you do that.
I think my ideal would be to work something like 3 days/week - I could just do that forever if the work was moderately interesting, but there aren't a lot of programming gigs where they let you do that.