by Joe Hearn | Mar 28, 2014 | Lifestyle Design, Mini-retirements, Pursuits, Retirement
It’s no accident that this site is called Intentional Retirement.
Being intentional with this brief, but beautiful life is one of the things I’ve tried to weave into the DNA of the site since day one. I preach that sermon every chance I get and I work hard to practice what I preach. I know many of you do the same.
One side effect of being intentional is that you start to tackle big things. You look past the low hanging fruit of your daily “To Do List” and instead set your sights on those big, intimidating goals that you’ve thought about for years, but have never brought to the front burner of life.
Here’s an example from my own life. As many of you know, I’m in the middle of planning my first Mini-Retirement. One thing I’ve learned so far is that ditching your job and traveling halfway around the world for four weeks takes a lot of planning. I know. Who knew? Right?
I’ve spent months working on logistics like accommodations, rental cars, airfare, event tickets, reservations, train tickets and daily itineraries. This is to say nothing of other important details like figuring out a way to pay for it all (Donations accepted. Just kidding. I’ve learned a lot about traveling less expensively and I’ll detail that in a future post.).
As I thought about all this, I had a flash of insight relating to doing big things. It’s the universal secret to accomplishing anything big in life, whether that’s a big trip, writing a book, having a great relationship, building a healthy marriage, having a successful career, getting in shape or putting a man on the moon.
Here it is.
Ready?
The secret to doing big things is to do a bunch of little things. In other words, you don’t “write a book,” you write a little bit today, and then tomorrow and then the next day. You do that a few thousand times and then throw in a good dose of editing, pitching and publishing and Voila! You’ve written a book. This same process applies to anything big you want to do in life.
If I were to put that into an equation, it would look something like this:
Little things + Consistency + Time = Big Things
Application
As you think about how you can apply the above equation in your own life, keep one thing in mind: The clock is ticking. In other words, the “Time” variable in the equation is getting smaller each day. Why is that important? Because if “Time” is getting smaller, then you need to increase the “Little Things” and the “Consistency” in order to still achieve the “Big Things” that you have in mind. If you can’t do that, then you need to rewrite your equation to get rid of the “Big Things” and replace them with medium or small things.
That’s why I’m so adamant about not waiting until your 60s to retire. It’s why I’m so against saving the best for last. Too many people follow the “traditional retirement” path and when they arrive, they realize that their equation doesn’t balance. They do the mental math and realize that many of their plans and dreams require a crazy amount of effort and consistency because they’ve waited so long start. This results in no small amount of discouragement as they let those dreams go and settle on smaller plans.
So remember that equation above. Dream big, but don’t wait to start. Retire today.
Have a great weekend!
Joe
by Joe Hearn | Nov 27, 2013 | Lifestyle Design
Ask a 6 year old what they want to be when they grow up and chances are you’ll get an answer like astronaut, fireman or super hero. No need to worry about feasibility or practicality when you’re 6. Just pick something that sounds awesome or involves flying.
Ask an 18 year old the same question, however, and you’ll probably see a wave of anxiety wash over their face. That’s because college is just around the corner and the “what do I want to be” question is starting to take on some urgency.
I’ve helped hundreds of people plan for retirement over the years and there’s a similar dynamic when you ask people about retirement. Ask a 40 year old what they want to do when they retire and you’re likely to get the grown up version of “astronaut.” Buy a sailboat. Plant myself on the beach. Climb Everest. Retirement is decades away, so they usually just list off some things that sound fun and that don’t involve work.
Ask a 60 year old, however, and you’re likely to get a different reaction. The decision has some urgency. Sure, it will include some items from the Bucket List, but they’re not planning a vacation. They’re planning what to do with the next 20 or 30 years. That can be intimidating. What will you do with all that time? What will provide purpose and satisfaction? What will be interesting and challenging?
If retirement is on the horizon and you’re feeling a bit of anxiety about how you’ll fill your days, I want to help. Here are 10 questions that should help get you thinking about what to do during retirement.
1) If you could relive your life, knowing everything that you know now, what would you do differently?
2) What are your highest ideals and/or priorities?
3) If you died tomorrow, what would be your top 5 regrets?
4) If you were to design an improved version of yourself and your life, how would it be different?
5) Who are the people that matter most to you and who do you matter to?
6) Reflecting back on your life, when were you the happiest and why?
7) What skills or talents do you have?
8) What hobbies or activities do you enjoy?
9) What are 5 things that you would STOP doing tomorrow if you could?
10) What would you say if you were at a cocktail party and someone asked you, “Why do you want to retire?”
I hope a few of those questions were helpful to you. For a much deeper dive on the topic, keep your eyes open for my Ideal Retirement Design Guide.
As always, thanks for reading and, for those of you here in the U.S., enjoy Thanksgiving tomorrow with your friends and family.
~ Joe
by Joe Hearn | Oct 18, 2013 | Lifestyle Design, Pursuits
Life is busy. One day runs into the next and then the next, a constant blur of busyness, work, errands and seemingly important (at the time at least) comings and goings. If you’re not careful, you look up one day and wonder where the last 20 years went. That’s why I spend so much time talking about being intentional. No on cares more about your life than you. If you aren’t focused on wringing the most from your days, it’s a safe bet that no one will be.
We know this, of course, but sometimes it’s good to have a reminder. It’s good to have someone come along and whisper “carpe diem” or “nothing gold can stay.” So when I came across a thought provoking video recently that breaks down our days and how we’ll spend them, I wanted to share it with you. Just click the link below for the short youtube video.
And if you want a bit more on the topic, here are a few articles from the archives.
Have a great weekend.
~ Joe
by Joe Hearn | Sep 23, 2013 | Lifestyle Design, Mini-retirements, Work
Based on the huge response to my initial “Mini-Retirement” post, I think I can safely draw two conclusions:
#1: There are A LOT of you who don’t buy into the “save the best for last” philosophy of retirement. No surprise here. IR readers are all about living intentional rather than conventional lives.
And…
#2: While you love the concept, some of you are a little uncertain how to make it work for you. In other words, the “want to” is there, but the “how to” is a little fuzzy.
The comment I heard most went something like this: “I love the idea, but I don’t think I could make it work because of my job.” Fair enough. I’m fairly attached to my paycheck too. The good news is that living an interesting life and doing meaningful work aren’t mutually exclusive. If you want to make it happen, you can. Below are some ideas to get you thinking how.
Making mini-retirements work with work.
Note: Not every idea will work for every person, but I’ll bet there is more than one thing on the list that will work for you.
Take the easy wins. Many of us have a certain amount of paid vacation and sick time each year. Some companies even allow you to bank unused time year after year. Rather than spreading those days out in one or two day increments throughout the year, take it all at once. For many, this idea alone will be enough to move mini-retirements from pipe dream to possibility.
Rearrange your hours. Some jobs have a great deal of flexibility. Others are a bit more rigid and follow a basic formula of trading time for money. For those with the latter, your employer’s primary concern is that you’re putting in the hours and doing the work.
A full time job is usually 2,000 hours per year: 40 hours per week for 50 weeks with a 2 week vacation. What if you flipped that equation and worked 50 hours per week for 40 weeks and then took 12 weeks off? Not sure your employer would go for it? Propose 43.5 hours per week for 46 weeks and then take 6 weeks off. Or even 41.7 hours per week for 48 weeks and then take four weeks off. With any of those options your employer is paying you exactly the same amount of money, you’re working exactly the same amount of hours and you’ve got time each year for a mini-retirement.
Ask for your raise to be paid in time off. Companies have been watching their pennies pretty closely since the meltdown in 2008. Consequently, your boss might not be very receptive if you ask for a raise, even if you deserve one. You could probably improve your odds if you ask for that raise to be paid in time off instead of dollars. It’s a win-win. The company keeps a lid on expenses and you get more time off.
Optimize your schedule. Many of us have jobs where we’re not doing the exact same thing day in and day out. There is an ebb and flow to our tasks and responsibilities. We have busy times and slow times throughout the year. Times that require a lot of face to face interaction and times where any old computer and phone will suffice. My job is a lot like this. It gets busy and interactive during client reviews or when I’m doing seminars, but summers and holidays are usually dead. It wouldn’t take much for me to rearrange my schedule so that the things I need to be present for are all concentrated in certain months and the things I can do remotely are shifted to a mini-retirement month. This is a good option for those who want to take extended time off while still maintaing momentum at work.
Batch tasks. Improved productivity means that you can do the same amount of work in less time. If you have one of those jobs that is more focused on completing certain tasks rather than putting in certain hours, batching can be a big help. Most of you probably already use batching when you do things like pay bills. Rather than grabbing your checkbook every time you go to the mailbox, you save up that month’s bills and then pay them all at once. Are there parts of your job that you can batch in order to be more efficient? Once the work is done, what’s keeping you behind your desk (besides inertia)?
Use technology for location independence. For many of us, our jobs are perfectly designed for the people who did those jobs 10 years ago. We commute to a special building and then sit in a fabric covered box (cubicle) so we can use a computer and a phone (sounds glamorous!). Technology has made the building and the box, if not obsolete, at least less important.
We still need the computer and the phone, but technology like Skype, Go To Meeting, wireless internet, cloud computing, instant messaging, Google Voice and collaboration software (e.g. Asana, BaseCamp) have made it possible for many of us to do some or all of our job from just about anywhere (a.k.a. location independence).
Being gone for a year might not be realistic, but would it be possible to take a month or two off and use technology to keep up with important projects and deal with urgent issues even while you’re gone?
Negotiate a remote work agreement. According to Forrester Research, more than 34 million people work remotely. That number is expected to hit 63 million by 2016. I’m skeptical that most bosses would be ok with you working in your pajamas from home 365 days per year, but if you combine this idea with one or more of the previous ones, I’m guessing that a reasonable boss would be willing to allow you to work remotely for a fixed period (say 6 weeks) and only count part of that time as vacation.
Sacrifice. All of the options up to this point involve still getting your paycheck. If you didn’t find something on the list that works for you, maybe it’s time to take more drastic action. This could include taking unpaid time off or quitting/changing jobs altogether. Obviously, that’s a little more painful because it involves change and sacrifice, but I think it’s important to ask yourself this: “If my current job keeps me from living the kind of life I want to live, should I really stay there for the next 10, 20 or 30 years?” If the answer is no, a change may be in order.
Putting it into practice
Anytime you’re trying to wrap your mind around something that is unconventional and complicated, it’s helpful to know that it’s possible. That’s why it’s been so encouraging to me this week to hear how some of you are working to make mini-retirements a reality. There’s the couple planning to move to Spain for a year with their kids. There’s the family who, after reading my initial post on mini-retirements, read it aloud at the dinner table and had a mini-retirement to New York booked by the end of the week. There’s the friend who is consistently updating me while living in the Congo for three months as a volunteer for Mercy Ships. These stories and more are good reminders that, with a little planning and effort, we don’t need to defer our dreams until “someday.” I hope you’ll join in with the rest of us. Feel free to leave a comment or question on the site and touch base with me if there’s ever anything I can do to help.
Have a great week!
~ Joe
by Joe Hearn | Sep 10, 2013 | Lifestyle Design, Pursuits, Retirement
What is a mini-retirement?
Long-suffering readers know that I have a bit of a different take on retirement than most. Where others see something based on age or assets, I see something based on control. Where others see a life-stage, I see a lifestyle philosophy.
After all, why should living the life you truly want to live depend on how many birthdays you’ve had or whether or not you punch a time clock? How in the world has it become acceptable to defer your dreams and push the best things in life to the very end?
The concept sounds great, of course, but how do you do it? I’ve offered some ideas before (for example, here, here and here), but I’d like to expand on an additional idea that I’ve only briefly mentioned in the past: Mini-Retirements. What exactly is a mini-retirement?
With traditional retirement, you save up the good stuff for that 20-30 year period at the end of life.
The idea of mini-retirements takes some of that 20-30 year period (say 5 years), breaks it up into 1-3 month chunks and spreads it out over your working years. A mini-retirement is longer than a vacation, but shorter than…well…retirement.
As you might imagine, there are a number of benefits to taking these extended periods off:
- You have time to actually experience a place rather than just visiting the touristy spots.
- It allows you to enjoy some of the benefits of retirement while you’re still young and healthy.
- It rejuvenates you and can help you come back to work more engaged and more productive.
I didn’t invent the idea of mini-retirements (I was introduced to it by Tim Ferriss), but the concept fits perfectly with my philosophy here at Intentional Retirement. Namely that retirement shouldn’t be something that is delayed until “Someday,” but rather it should be an incremental process that is incorporated into your life now.
My mini-retirement experiment
Renting an apartment in Madrid or Melbourne and immersing yourself in the culture for a few months sounds great, but there are a number of challenges. For example:
- How do you pay for it?
- How can you get the time off work?
- Where should you go?
- What about your spouse and/or kids?
- What do you do with your house when you leave?
- What type of planning is involved (e.g. housing, airfare, language barrier)?
To answer those questions, I plan on researching and writing a series of posts and then scheduling a mini-retirement for myself by the end of next year (You may have noticed a few of them on my 50-by-50 List). As some of you know, I’m working, married and have an 8-year-old daughter, so this will be no small task. I don’t yet know where, when or how, but I know why and as faithful readers know, why is half the battle.
So follow along and let’s figure it out together. I’d love it if some of you were inspired to do something similar. Feel free to email me questions or leave comments in the articles about your own thoughts and planning. It’s always easier to tackle big goals when you have company.
Hope to see you on the road.
~ Joe
P.S. Have you read the IR Manifesto A Brief Guide to Retirement Bliss? If not, you can download a free copy over here.
Photo courtesy of Mihhailov. Used under Creative Commons License.
by Joe Hearn | Aug 29, 2013 | Lifestyle Design, Pursuits, Retirement
Earlier this week I talked about how time usually opens doors between the ages of 0 and 21 and then starts to close them from 21 on. I promised a follow up email with some ideas on how to maximize your time and opportunities. Here are 15 practical ways to live a purposeful life and get things done before time closes the door.
(BTW, I added a few pictures from a recent trip to Washington as inspiration. If they cause the email to display incorrectly, just click the title above and you can view the post in your browser.)
- Know your “Why.” If you don’t have a good answer for “why” you won’t have much success with “What” or “How.”
- 80/20 your life. Pareto’s Law says that 80% of your results will come from 20% of your efforts. Look at every area of your life from your work day to your wardrobe; from your friendships to your finances; from your possessions to your future plans. What if I told you that you had to cut 80% from every area? What 20% would keep? More than likely, that is the 20% that will make the biggest impact on your life. Focus on those “Big Wins.”
- Don’t let meaningful dates sneak up on you. On January 1st of each year, print out a list of holidays, birthdays and other special occasions. Next to each one, jot down some ideas for how you want to spend that day and what you need to do in order to prepare. Once December 31st rolls around, time has closed that year’s “doors” for good.
- Always know “What’s next.” What are the key things you need to do at work tomorrow? What is the next trip you’re planning? What is the next date night with your spouse or activity with your kids? Don’t just be O.K. with what the day throws at you. Have an agenda. To help in this area, I use a free software program called Asana.
- Add more time. We all have 24 hours in our day, but some have more days than others. If you want to keep time from shutting certain doors, don’t overlook the obvious solution of getting yourself healthy so you can do more things over a longer period of time. It’s like shoveling sand into the top of your hourglass.
- Control more of the time you have. Each day subtracts from fewer and fewer. No matter how healthy you are, you won’t live forever. Once you’ve done your best to add days (see #5), work at controlling more of each day that you have left (e.g. save more to achieve financial independence, be intentional with your free time, outsource as many tasks as possible, negotiate a remote work agreement, etc.).
- Focus on milestones (e.g. family, relationships, meaningful work, education, adventure), not maintenance (e.g. paying bills, mowing the yard, worthless meetings, pushing paper). When you reflect on your life, the milestones will be the things that stand out. They will be the things that you are most proud of. The maintenance will just fade into the background.
- Given the choice between “more stuff” and “more experiences,” choose the latter. A life spent in dogged pursuit of rich experiences will usually have a much better payoff than one seeking the latest gadget or gizmo.
- Consistently shake up your routine. There’s nothing wrong with having a place you go for coffee every day or a list of tasks that need to be done each week, but be careful that your routine doesn’t become, well…routine. Try to live a life where you have 60+ years of great experiences, not 1 year of experiences lived 60 times over.
- Create some margin in your life. One problem that business owners often have is that they spend so much time working IN their business that they don’t have much time to work ON their business. The same can be true for individuals. Create margin in your life so you can spend some time every day or every week thinking about and doing things that will actually make your life better.
- Schedule the “fun” stuff. If something is on your calendar, it gets done. Don’t just schedule the things you have to do. Schedule the things you want to do and then keep that “appointment” just like you would any other important meeting or obligation.
- Make a Bucket List. You can see mine over here. If you have specific plans, you’re more likely to follow through with them.
- Curate your life. Your life will largely be defined by what you allow in and what you keep out. Choose everything—friends, hobbies, work, philanthropy, clothes, vacations, meals, gadgets, books, etc.—with a discerning eye. Be a tough curator and you’ll have an interesting life.
- Dream big. Daniel Burnham (designer of such small projects as Chicago, Washington D.C. and Union Station) once said “Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably will not themselves be realized.” When you dream big, it changes how you think and how you act. It inspires and changes you. Dream big and have a vision for your life.
- DON’T WAIT! The longer you wait, the less you believe yourself when you say “Someday.” Your dreams begin to atrophy. Your opportunities begin to vanish. You aim lower. You talk yourself out of things. Time begins to close doors. Before you know it, it’s too late. Don’t wait.
Your “trying to make the most out the time he has left” blogger,
~ Joe
Page 13 of 17
«<...12131415...>» 
