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Hello: I'm Peter and I'm a workaholic.....

Many a true word said in jest....

I'm prevaricating about retirement...mainly because I have become conditioned to needing to work. Running your own business does that.
Actually I think I'm addicted to work: it is easier for me to stop drinking for a week than not do any work for a week.

I'm 65 in April next year and will still be working. I really don't want to be working beyond my 66th, I am dropping to a 3 day week from 1 January, but before I finally set a date and walk away I need to learn to not need to work.

Any suggestions, serious ones?

Serious..? On TM..?

I find myself with exactly the opposite. I'm seriously looking for 'work', and that's the rub. If you enjoy it in the majority of tasks, then it ceases to become work but becomes something much more fulfilling.

I certainly don't want a full time role with a lot of responsibility, but I'd relish something where people took you seriously if you had anything to offer.

So have a think about your own role. Do you enjoy the routine, do you get taken seriously and do you believe in your product or role? How does going to work make you feel?

If your alarm goes off and your first thoughts are to groan, then maybe it is time. If on the other hand, you enjoy the challenge and the positives of being needed then carry on and see what happens.

There is a news story today about an 89yr old ex-soldier recently widowed, who advertised for a job to stave off boredom.

There's more to life than hating work. There is so much more when you look at the positive of it all.

You may have a list of things to do but feel frustrated by time constraints, that's another reason to consider giving up work.

Work isn't work if you still enjoy it.

That's interesting Phil, I've been at Hatfield Forest since August this year and I love it. As you say, it gives a focus to the week and gets me out in the fresh air. I was talking to a visitor only today who is of a like mind and is going to make enquiries about joining us.

Peter.

Now approaching my fifth month of retirement I have discovered that you cannot fully prepare for it.

The first month was like an extended holiday.

Now it's different. The pace of my life has slowed...but to a welcome extent.

Small pleasures have become a delight.

I reflect a lot. Positively .

And dream a bit too.

Sometimes of a Plus8 !

So. In my limited experience - as so much in life, you just have to go for it!

As you know, I retired aged 42. Bad decision. I became witness to what goes on at home (bugger all) and became an incompetent Domestic Assistant.

I became convinced that a man needs a mission - so went back to work aged 50 after 8 years of misbehaving.

That said, I think one should know oneself to a large extent - particularly as we get older. If your body and mind is saying slow down, then slow down. Everyone is different.

The transition from full time to fully retired is huge and shouldn't be underestimated. I went from 41.5 years full time to ten days a month part time in April 2013 and coming to terms with that has been a challenge both at work and at home.
At work there was an immediate change in that from being a 'key player' with a team, I was sidelined and pretty much kept in the dark, not deliberately. I think it's called unconscious bias, although in some cases it was conscious.
After three and a half years of this I've found ways to deal with it, and I still enjoy turning up.
At home I'm lucky that I have plenty to do, a lot of which is car related and always has been. But I also do (most of) the gardening and the decorating and general maintenance. But having said that, it's a huge change being at home so much. and I find it difficult getting out of bed.

Some friends are about to fully retire. One is a workaholic who lives and breathes work and I do worry about how they will cope with the seismic change when they have no consuming hobbies outside work. One of the others hates work, can't wait to leave but has no big interests so I think he will struggle.

We try to walk every day I'm at home, at least three miles. When I'm at work I walk closer to five miles. On holiday we do up to sixteen miles each day with a plan to increase that to twenty miles, although it does depend on terrain.

We aim to do as much of the SW coast path as we can, although we often redo our favourite sections, and we will explore further into Scotland & Wales. This dovetails nicely into Morgan road trips, so for now the jigsaw is pretty good. Public Transport has been my Gym for the last twenty years!!!

Everyone has to have a reason to get out of bed in the morning, and it's a jolly good thing if that reason is to do something one enjoys doing.

If it's something that not only one enjoys, but is also something that other people are prepared to pay one to do, then so much the better in my view.

I expect I will retire at some point, but all the time I can do something I love and get paid for it, I can't see a reason to.

Everyone must make their own decision. Mine was made for me by illness, even though my (terrific) employers wanted me to stay on.
I didn't want to stay as inevitably I would not be able to work in a way I felt the job deserved.
I was diagnosed with a health issue in 2010 and retired early in 2013 having had something like 35 weeks off sick in the interim period.

I have a great friend who is a local undertaker; over a pint he told me "Simon, I've never seen a grave stone that says; I wish I had spent more time at work.

So, Peter (and anyone else making the decision); it has to be on your own judgement; however just enjoy each day, whether at work, or retired.

Peter, my background is that I retired 7 years ago aged 45, having worked a 60+ hr week international travel etc, for 25 years at an independent US-owned investment house.

To say the step-change was a shock was an understatement, but I knew that if I carried on it would definitely kill me - literally. I joined a gym, became teetotal and lost 4 1/2 stone.

The key (for me) was to approach retirement like a 'job':
- If your Pension is in an investment you control, you are an investment manager
- If you have properties you maintain, alter, extend etc, you are an estate manager
- If you have school-age kids (I do) then you are a taxi-driver, home-tutor and banker
- If your wife is happy to step aside (mine was) then you can become cook, cleaner, housekeeper
- And there's always something needs doing in the garden

My advice is structure your day - even if it feels artificial at first (and it is artificial - as others have noted, all real task-centered urgency goes) you will achieve more and maintain a sense of purpose and direction.

Within a year, you will wonder how you ever found the time to work.

Good luck.

I've been retired for three years and readily fill my time as an active school governor, some voluntary social work, my garden and of course my Mog and my Mini. However I've always wanted to indulge my interest in history and love of meeting people by volunteering for the National Trust. Unfortunately they have no major property within a reasonable drive from my part of Leicestershire (basically Leicester itself) Anyone out there with any ideas on similar types of voluntary roles?

Andy