An acquaintance of mine tells a story about how she was on the verge of leaving her corporate job and explore a new life when her barista gave her more than a cup of coffee. He offered these words of wisdom, "Structure is important in times of change." Those words have remained with me and continue to prove helpful.

When big changes happen in your life, they disrupt the habit of life. Sometimes, without that old list of things to do dictating your days, it's difficult to figure out the right new list of things to do. That's not to say that you won't find a way to be busy. It's just figuring out the right busy. So where do you start? I have long preached that you should start with your wants. Who and how do you want to BE? What do you want to DO? What do you want to have? Thanks to Danielle Laporte's The Desire Map, I'd add asking yourself what you want to feel.

Start with these simple lists and you'll find some goals. Once you have these goals, you can start figuring out what needs to be done to achieve them. Then, you can start chunking up your days accordingly so that your days don't become a slide into non-purposeful doing. Even unstructured doing should take place within a structure.