Category Archives: Workaholism

Mastering the Skill of Doing Nothing in Retirement

Non-financial Aspects of retirement, Workaholism, , ,

Retirement is an amazing time. I find it both interesting and amusing that I had to put effort into doing nothing in retirement. Before retiring it seemed it would be a no-brainer handling time just doing nothing. But in reality, after many decades of serving the employment masters, there is a whole slew of conditioning geared toward productivity that has to be unwoven.

The “doing nothing” definition flips after retirement and for me it is a humorous mind trip. There is doing nothing from the working stiff perspective and another point of view from the retirement side of living. That’s because from our time in school and throughout our working lives, doing nothing has been given a bad reputation. Well not anymore. Doing nothing in retirement is a useful skill.

Mastering the Skill of Doing Nothing in Retirement

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

I’m Always Looking For Ways To Improve My Early Retirement

The truth is we can be way too busy in retirement. It’s easy to over commit and cram in as much as we can. Especially early in retirement. You can’t really grasp that until you are retired and living it. It doesn’t matter how many times you heard it from other retirees before entering the retirement zone yourself.

I have written about how I stay busy and how rarely I catch TV or anything close to being sedentary before 5 PM. Like it’s something to be proud of and a measurement of my early retirement success by having no chance to ever be bored. But something was missing. I now admit that it took my having a few years of early retirement under my belt to wise up. It took me a little time to learn how to be better at doing nothing. I jokingly call it a retirement skill because it is something that you get better at with practice.  

Skillfully Doing Nothing In Retirement

First off, having some structure in our retirement is a good thing. But sometimes we just trade one over-structured lifestyle for another. One that leaves no room for just doing nothing. I find it a little funny that I can become the most demanding boss I’ve ever had.

Part of the problem is all the cautions about having the non-financial aspects of retirement covered. Those constantly drummed warnings about people who retired into misery because of boredom. It’s best that we know what we plan on doing with all of our free time. Those cautions really do apply.

But there should be another caution in the retirement for newbies handbook: Beware of overdoing it with the commitment of your hard-won free-time. Our brains seem oddly wired to be productive and we can try to overcompensate once our initial retirement honeymoon of leisure ends. Mine sure did.

Four Steps To Mastering the Skill of Doing Nothing in Retirement

Step #1- Start by Recognizing the Health Benefits of Doing Nothing

It sounds strange but doing nothing is actually doing something. Doing nothing allows for us to have down-time from a busy retirement schedule to improve our mental and physical health. This is an important step because it all starts here for reasons that became clear to me in later steps.

We took breaks when we worked. The reasons for those breaks still come into play in retirement. Those of us who retired early are an ambitious lot. It’s something that carries on into retirement.

Doing Nothing will:

  • Allow time to clear our head and rest.
  • Improve our mood and wellbeing.
  • Lower our heart rate.
  • Increased our brain health.

I didn’t immediately embrace the concept that doing nothing would have health benefits. But I had to acknowledge that over the ages meditation has been shown to bring peace to one’s health and mind. Meditation is the ultimate form of doing nothing.

I now listen to my mind and body for signs that it’s time to step back and start a little retirement do nothing time. My doing nothing episodes lasts as long as it needs to. I just jump back into my busy retirement schedule when I am ready to step back into it.

Step #2- Embrace The Idea That it’s OK to Spend Time Doing Nothing

I had to ask myself: Why was my occasionally doing nothing OK when still working but not now?  Why did I let it bug the crap out of me now that I am retired? Taking a break is necessary, even in retirement. When I was a worker I used to spend whole weekends doing nothing. Especially after a busy and stressful work week. I would even proudly brag I did nothing over the weekend. That was my time-out from being under “The Man”. I’m now the boss. What is different now is that in retirement I get to decide when and take as long as I want or need to do nothing .

After decades under the control of the corporate world it’s no wonder I struggled with this aspect of freedom. It was too easy in retirement to push myself beyond a leisurely pace to fulfill my passions and interest goals. I was at times stressing myself out and it was a total mind-warp. I now know that the skill of doing nothing had to be learned through practice after all the years spent in the working mindset. This is the necessary mind-shift I had to complete from my worker self to my retired self. I had to reconfigure an ingrained doing nothing belief system. Retirement means never having to earn approval for downtime.

I gave myself permission by saying: Dude, you have already recognized the health benefits of stepping back and doing nothing, just let it rip. I made a mental flip to embrace doing nothing as valued and stopped caring about what others think. When I’m on a do nothing day and asked what I have been up to I smile and admit it instead of trying to always have something productive to answer back with. Remember, most everyone still working already thinks retirees are doing nothing anyway, no matter how we answer.

Step #3- Control The Productivity Beast Within

There is only so much time in a day and I had to stop prioritizing my chosen activities based on its productive merits. Productive purpose seemed to always come before purposeful fun. It was like one of those vacations where everyday there was something fun scheduled to do. Running from one thing to another where there was no down time to just enjoy a day of leisurely sloth to slow down. When the productive vacation ends you’re run down instead of rested and feel like we need a vacation from our vacation. Just because something should be fun, if we don’t pace ourselves, we end up turning it into something else.

I stopped assigning productive purpose to everything I do in retirement. It’s alright to do things that have productive purpose but it shouldn’t dictate it’s priority at the expense of doing nothing or even activity done solely for the fun of it. For instance, de-emphasize reading based on educational value. Enjoy reading without assigning or needing a side motive. Repurpose biking and hiking from exercise to fun by slowing down and enjoying the scenery. Taking a nap just because I want to. Turn on the TV and catch an afternoon oldie or movie and tune out for a while. The list goes on and on. Tame the inner productivity beast by understanding that purposeful doing nothing in retirement is different from wasting our valuable retirement time.

Step #4- Everything in Moderation

Warning: Doing nothing can be addicting. Overdose can result in boredom and severe procrastination. Like everything else in life, moderation is required. Doing nothing in retirement can be highly addictive and create unwanted habits. The retirement boredom cautions are very real and worthy of concern. There has to be a balance of productivity and purposeful doing nothing.

 

It took time for me to admit I had a productivity bias against doing nothing and had to adjust my thinking to accept it. I only do what I want to do in my retirement but I still lean a bit towards the productive side of things. There are still goals to meet and things that I want to accomplish that won’t happen when doing nothing. But I also see the benefit of doing what I can to master the skill of doing nothing in retirement.

Workaholism Survives Financial Independence

Career, Health, Non-financial Aspects of retirement, Workaholic, Workaholism,

I have news that may surprise those on the journey to financial independence and perhaps also to those already enjoying the fruits of reaching their freedom goals. Workaholism Survives Financial Independence and Early Retirement. Just because you reach the point where you no longer NEED to work doesn’t mean your Workaholism will be automatically cured. The key is first recognition and then taking action as soon as possible.

Some people will joke calling themselves a workaholic when putting in extra hours on a project. When temporarily putting their personal life on hold. The truth is that anyone suffering from the negative impacts of Workaholism have nothing to joke about.

Workaholism is defined as valuing work over anything else.

There is no balance where their life can place value on or allow them to enjoy relationships, hobbies, or leisure.

Workaholism can cause serious health issues and destroy their marriage and other relationships.
Workaholics will work even if it is all-consuming.

Living without happiness or pleasure because they have no other passions, interests, or activities they would consider doing instead.

Workaholism is like an addiction.

An addiction with nothing but negative outcomes. Where the workaholic may want to stop because they recognize the damage it is doing but can’t stop.

The FI Community Has Its Share of Workaholics

Those who are successfully on the path to financial independence certainly have an ambitious and driven type of personality. They work hard to generate income. They budget, eliminate debt, become super-savers, side hustlers for extra income, etc. Chances are there are at least some workaholic traits if not full-blown Workaholism going on within them. Whether realized or not.

I know I suffered from it during my first career. I find even now after financial independence, early retirement, an encore career, and a second early retirement that I am not going to ever be cured. I will always be a Recovering Workaholic.  I’m not kidding about that.

It shows up during any project I am working on. I can become all consumed and can’t stop myself until it hits me that I am ignoring what is going on around me. All of the important things in my life drop by the wayside. I usually see it happening and catch myself where I can then pace myself and enjoy the moments passing by with my wife and family.

I have to remind myself that just because I am doing what I want to do and am passionate about doing that it is all too easy to fall into the same Workaholic traps. This of course results in my neglecting everything else.

Workaholism Does Survive Financial Independence and Early Retirement

I can tell you that Workaholism Survives Financial Independence and Early Retirement. It’s not just for those who have to serve their jobs, climb the corporate ladder, and accumulate as much money as they can get. You bring it with you wherever you go and are.

My Workaholism actually started early in school where I ignored everything else in my effort to earn straight ‘A’s. It has been with me much of my life. Fortunately I can now recognize my slips and put a stop to it. For others it’s not so easy because their Workaholic addiction takes over and they don’t even realize it until their health, relationships, or attitude toward life fails.

Workaholism Survives Financial Independence so Know the Signs

The first step to avoiding or beginning to stop Workaholism is to know the signs and recognize whether you have the traits and habits that put you in danger.

To figure out if you have workaholic tendencies, habits, or perhaps full-blown Workaholism, Workaholics Anonymous suggests you ask yourself these 20 questions.

Having only Three positive answers are considered an indicator that you may have a problem with Workaholism:
  1. Do you get more excited about your work than about family or anything else?
  2. Are there times when you can charge through your work and other times when you can’t?
  3. Do you take work with you to bed? On weekends? On vacation?
  4. Is work the activity you like to do best and talk about most?
  5. Do you work more than 40 hours a week?
  6. Do you turn your hobbies into money-making ventures?
  7. Do you take complete responsibility for the outcome of your work efforts?
  8. Have your family or friends given up expecting you on time?
  9. Do you take on extra work because you are concerned that it won’t otherwise get done?
  10. Do you underestimate how long a project will take and then rush to complete it?
  11. Do you believe that it is okay to work long hours if you love what you are doing?
  12. Do you get impatient with people who have other priorities besides work?
  13. Are you afraid that if you don’t work hard you will lose your job or be a failure?
  14. Is the future a constant worry for you even when things are going very well?
  15. Do you do things energetically and competitively, including play?
  16. Do you get irritated when people ask you to stop doing your work in order to do something else?
  17. Have your long hours hurt your family or other relationships?
  18. Do you think about your work while driving, falling asleep, or when others are talking?
  19. Do you work or read during meals?
  20. Do you believe that more money will solve the other problems in your life?
Workaholism isn’t a joke even though society may accept it and it is thrown around as a joke.

If you find you have a problem with Workaholism that you cannot control and it is negatively impacting your life, health, and relationships you can find help. It can be as easy as tuning-in to your problem and reaching out for more information at Workaholics Anonymous, a “fellowship of individuals who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problems and help others to recover from Workaholism”.

Workaholism Survives Financial Independence so Take Steps Early

You work hard to reach your financial goals and finally retire early from a life where you have to work. Your second act doesn’t have to carry your Workaholism of the past. Deal with it as soon as you can. If you haven’t dealt with your Workaholism while still in the Rat Race then don’t think it won’t appear in your early retirement. We leave the Rat Race with all the same drive and ambition that got us to Financial Independence and even though we may shift our focus from serving our corporate masters we can still fall into the same workaholic traps and suffer the same negative impacts. Basically without knowing it we create our own personal Rat Race under the rationalization that I am doing what I want to do.

Steps to Take:

Focus on what is truly important to you.

Obviously by reaching financial independence and retiring from a career-driven mindset we have redirected our focus away from our work and that is huge. Retiring to something is key. When I look at any opportunity that I have interest in or am passionate about doing in my “retire early and often” lifestyle or take on a project associated to my hobbies or home, I have to put aside my workaholic tendencies and stay on track.

Things that should have more importance than working or tackling a big project is Family, Friends, Health, and Leisure to have fun in life. List what is most important to you and swear to focus on dedicating some of your time to them. Even slowing down and being in the moment should be included because making time for all the others is wasted if your mind is always preoccupied with your work or project. Always remember that the things that are truly important can’t be bought and can be easily lost.

Set Limits on the number of projects or work you take on.

I have a lot of projects I WANT to start and someday finish. The trick is to finish tasks before starting another one. Incremental completion helps sooth the workaholic beast so that I don’t feel like I have to cram it all in during a short time-frame, thus robbing time from the important things. If something isn’t working-out then move on instead of wasting more of your valuable time on it. Remember that it is your time that you are spending and it’s too expensive to needlessly run through trying to please people.

Set time limits on projects or work.

Whether it’s which days a week and/or which hours in the day, limit your project or work time so that you always have time for the important stuff. Limit your time doing work and stick to it. Mindlessly throwing massive hours at your project or work only feeds Workaholism and starves the truly important things out of existence.

Assess the value of any project or work you take on.

Do a time-to-benefit analysis (your time vs how much and who [how many] benefit). What is the benefit of completing the work or a project? Are people waiting for you to finish? Is the deadline just one you laid on yourself? Always ask yourself this so you never get caught working on something for the sake of working on something. Workaholics tend to busy themselves with work just for work’s sake. Don’t be that person. If the benefit is low or none then don’t waste your time doing it and instead go hang-out with the family.

Purposely pace yourself.

The worst boss for a workaholic to work for is themselves. That is because they set tight deadlines for themselves with high expectations causing long hours trying to finish. Stop doing that. If you have other people pushing a deadline or requesting a lot of your time then do a real self-assessment and only accept what is reasonable. Then of course don’t let your Workaholism kick in and have you busting keister trying to beat it. Go into every project and work with purposeful time-management and pace yourself so you always make time for the truly important things.

Control your perfectionism.

Stop aiming for perfection in everything you do especially if it’s not necessary to meet your project or work’s purpose. Remember your Time carries a high value and there is always something better to do with it.

Strive to be productive and efficient.

Try to concentrate and get work done within short time-frames. This is so you can later allow yourself to celebrate your accomplishment by taking time to relax. Work smarter not longer.

Final Thought

Workaholism Survives Financial Independence and Early Retirement where our workaholic tendencies and habits manifest themselves in the projects or second-act careers we take on. Unfortunately they can cause the same negative impacts as when we are in a career striving for advancement and financial independence. Fortunately by recognizing our Workaholism we can take steps to control it.

You can still be a hard worker by working with efficiency and produce excellent quality work and not be a workaholic. It’s all about how you manage and prioritize your time and where you value spending it. Our time is finite and once it’s gone it’s gone. Take the Workaholics Anonymous 20 question self-survey and see if you have traits that need to be recognized as needing monitoring and possible elimination from your life.

Did you take the Workaholics Anonymous 20 question self-survey? How many questions you answer YES to?

Over Pursuit of Money can enslave

Retire Early, Saving Money, Workaholic, Workaholism

The over pursuit of money can enslave someone just as much as having high debt can. For many people the thing that triggers them to begin their journey towards financial independence is:

  • Hitting rock bottom financially
  • If not hitting bottom at least struggling financially and realizing there is a better way to live.

My FI trigger was “B”. Everyone knows about financial enslavement by debt. You get in too deep and soon you have nothing left. All income goes to pay off all the monthly credit card and loan payments. You are trapped to continue working your keister off just to stay current with your debt obligations. Never getting ahead to start saving for a better life. All because your money goes to paying for crap you bought on credit a long time ago. There is no real freedom living that life. Feeling that struggle and pain of debt-enslavement is necessary. I think it keeps us from repeating the financial mistakes we made.

But people who are successfully on the path to financial independence or have already reached it are an ambitious lot. They –

  • Figure out how to live frugally to free up more money to save, invest and pay off all their debts.
  • Set sustainable budgets for the long haul and track their lifestyle costs.
  • Find ways to increase their income through career advancement, side hustles, or driven to increase their self-employment business.
Here is the question. Can we go too far?

I can tell you, YES we can. I know because I suffered from this.

“The money you have can give you freedom; the money you pursue enslaves you”.  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I think those who are dedicated, motivated , and successfully striving for financial independence have to be careful that they do not fall into the over-pursuit of money trap. Trapped in believing they must continue working their keister off to reach a very large “Number” or have overly aggressive timeline goals. Just as living with high debt, there is no real freedom living this kind of life either. It may start out as temporarily setting aside “balance” and our personal relationships to get things kick-started, or at least that is what we tell ourselves. We know we are doing the right thing financially so we take off full speed with all the best intentions. Then it drags on because it is either not happening as fast as we set our goals for or in some cases it is so successful we think we would be fools to step back from it.

All of that is fine if you still love the journey.

If while making the big sacrifices on your journey to financial independence you are still enjoying yourself, not feeling enslaved in your pursuit of more money, stocks, rental units, business, etc. then keep going. For me I delayed my first retirement by a year. Sure I added to my net-worth doing so but it did take a toll on my well-being and I lost a year of my life that I will never get back. I am just very happy that one extra year is all I spent in FI Denial trapped in my pursuit of a little more.

Yes, over pursuit of money can enslave.

Signs you may be over doing your pursuit of financial independence.
  • You have recurring thoughts of having no time to be with the people you care about or doing things you really want to do. Then you intend to make time but your income and saving pursuits keep you too busy.
  • You start to resent portions of your frugal lifestyle. You find yourself complaining about aspects of your budget even with your net-worth growing. This isn’t about lifestyle inflation. This is about pushing your frugal thresholds and going too far. You are essentially breaking it.
  • The passion is gone. You have to force yourself to do your job, side hustle or whatever you are doing to increase income. Finding yourself complaining about it even though you are making positive strides towards your financial goals.
  • You know deep in your soul that you are burning out and running out of gas. You can see and feel your energy and enthusiasm diminish. Your work ethic and commitment to your financial goals keeps you from backing off. You are constantly pushing forward but all is not well inside you because the journey has become all-encompassing.
The steps you can take to break free.
  • Understand what financial independence is or at least what it is to you. It isn’t just some big number. It can be at minimum having enough income produced by your assets to pay your basic living essentials without you having to work. You may want to include in that amount your discretionary costs and add some income from doing work you want to do. If you have chased after a “Number” like one million dollars or more, maybe tweaking your definition may have you closer than you think. Then you can scale back some of your money pursuits to make room for the other things that are important to you.
  • Re-evaluate your plan, your current net-worth and your projected net-worth within your timeline goals. See if you can still make progress while making time in your life. We aren’t talking about quitting the FI quest. It’s about scaling back because you are a workaholic and enslaved by your actions.
  • If you find your lifestyle lacking because of your frugal budget, recognize where you crossed your frugality threshold and make adjustments. Every dollar saved counts and adds up but it is not worth feeling like you are living a deprived life. You aren’t in a place of high debt and having to struggle to pay it off. You are successfully banking money. There is always room for compromise as long as it is smart-frugal and still leaves you feeling satisfied and happy. All while maintaining a “no money wasted” policy in the budget.
  • Prioritize “balance” as highest and then model your pursuits after it. Scaling back from a successful plan is far better than scrapping it or hating your life while doing it.
The Last Word

Whether you find that you can consider yourself as financially independent, ahead of schedule or on track to reaching financial independence, or just need to scale back so that you can live a more balanced life, the idea is the same. Find that sweet spot where you can still live a full and happy life while still being financially responsible and keeping to your financial independence goals.

The over pursuit of money can enslave because if you are good at it, it can become a trap. Especially for successful, high work ethic, hardworking people. Don’t be enslaved chasing for more. Know when enough is enough.

I was being pretty successful increasing my net-worth but miserable doing it. Even when I had enough to start living my life on my terms. Although it was good financially it was hard on my life because I had no balance. Have you ever felt like you have pushed too hard and lost the balance in your life?