Is semi-retirement stressful? You bet—here’s what to do about it

Lately, my most important gig, other than my MoneySense Retired Cash column, is conserving my web site FindependenceHub.com operating. Whereas “the Hub,” as many name it, is a business proposition, for me, it’s also enjoyable and inventive and, I wish to assume, it offers a public service. Typically I write for enjoyable relatively than for cash. Actually, that’s how this column started. In the middle of chatting with an understanding editor, I realized that to some extent we each shared the philosophy of “Reduce stress, don’t maximize income.” 

Off the highest of my head, I wrote a draft—only for enjoyable—to see if the subject was meaty sufficient for a column. It simply met the allotted phrase rely, even with out the standard means of sprinkling in commentary from numerous specialists, which instructed me there was certainly “a column there.” 

These acquainted with the Hub could know I goal to publish one thing each enterprise day, 52 weeks a 12 months. I weblog below my very own identify a couple of times every week, and the remainder of the content material is generated by visitor authors or sponsors. And this summer time I’ve began to experiment with operating simply 4 weblog posts per week. 

“Whoa,” you say? That doesn’t sound like retirement—semi- or in any other case, you say? 

I suppose that’s true, however as Mike Drak and I wrote in our co-authored guide, Victory Lap Retirement (Milner, 2019), we’re on the stage the place work is supposed to supply us with which means and function, not a lot meant to generate income. It offers us a bare-bones construction on which we will cling all the opposite actions of semi-retirement. 

The aspiring artist who “buys time” to color

Whether or not workload applies to blogs or writing assignments, it’s all about managing your workflow, time and vitality. In our guide, Drak and I described an artist who used the phrase “shopping for time.” This individual, previously a neighbour of mine, had a day job that concerned business portray, however he additionally aspired to be a artistic painter, which he in the end turned in full retirement. However even in his working years, he’d tackle well-paid multiple-week business tasks in an effort to construct up financial savings enough to briefly “give up” so he may spend months at a time on his real love of artistic portray.  

In my case, I seldom take a full week off except travelling overseas. However, I’ll attempt to “purchase time” by increase a weblog/column financial institution, so it’s seldom essential to work nights or weekends. And this manner, I seldom really feel the load of a deadline when writing, both. It’s a query of rationing time and vitality. In the summertime, I goal to clock out by noon Friday, so in impact my weekends are two and a half days. 

In case you handle your shoppers with deadlines (yours or theirs) sufficiently upfront, it is best to be capable to even out your workflow and income, so you possibly can work such a four-day (or four-and-a-half-day) week.