BUSY DOING NOTHING

An earlier post, 'Retirement Rules' met with surprising acclaim. It dealt with what I regard as the best approach to retirement but as several people pointed out, the advice holds good for any age.

Now there is a somewhat hackneyed expression amongst retired people which goes "I'm so busy now I've retired, I don't know how I used to find the time for work!". Well I believe I may be the living proof of this adage. I still do many things which I used to do while still in employment. Things like playing bridge, stamp-collecting, walking, reading, cinema-going etc.

In addition though, I play tennis once a week. I crew regularly for a charity which offers free day trips on their two large canal boats. I attend a weekly Pilates group session. I organise a group of around 30 boating enthusiasts. I keenly study Ancestry and am busy organising a big family gathering for the 120 or so living relatives who I've newly discovered. I act as a volunteer 'befriender' on a weekly basis at a children's hospice. I run my own blogsite and try to post 2 or 3 times a week (but then you know this already!) I act as an online DJ (pretty much daily). I play in a darts team (OK only Division 2!) I tweet on Twitter (@TonyLetts). I feed the birds in my garden.

My point is that I did absolutely none of these things when I was working. True, I had no option - but work really did prevent me from doing all these things which I so enjoy.

When you retire, you become 'time-rich'. It would be easy to squander all this time as so many lottery winners seem to do with their newly acquired money. Learn from their mistakes and make the best of your time-rich years!