Five Things You Won’t Miss About Work Once You’ve Retired

It’s amazing to think that we’ve been retired for over a year and we still wake up happy every morning that we don’t need to go to the office. It wasn’t that long ago that we were an average stressed-out couple just trying to survive the work week. Every day at the office felt like a battle. When 6pm rolled around and we thought we were done, there was still a barrage of emails and Whatsapp messages coming in.  

Today our lives couldn’t be more different. Now that we’re no longer working, we have said goodbye to the endless meetings and Powerpoint decks and annual performance reviews. Our time is our own; we decide what we do and when and how we do it. 

As we start a new year, it seems fitting to take the opportunity to look back and remember all the things we won’t miss from our corporate jobs. The list of things that we don’t miss from working life is likely very relatable: the onslaught of emails; having to be available day and night; and dealing with one emergency after another. 

Rigid schedule

Let’s start with being locked into a rigid schedule. When we were working, our entire lives were organized around the work week. Monday to Friday, everyday looked the same: At the office by 8:30am; sort through last night’s emails; back to back meetings; no time for breaks. If I was lucky, I would have 15 minutes of peace and quiet to eat my lunch over my computer. Then back at it until 6 or 7pm.

We would have a little tiny bit of personal time in the evening and then go to bed, wake up and do it all over again. And that was our life, day in and day out, for roughly 20 years. 

And today, life is totally different. Retiring early means that our time is our own and we can have as much variety as we want. Some days we go on a big excursion in whatever city we happen to be in. Other days we work on our creative projects. And some days we just like to hang out and try a new recipe and get caught up with our family and friends. We talked more about what we do all day in early retirement in a recent blog and video. 

Endless emails 

The next thing we definitely don’t miss from work is the endless flood of emails. It was always the most dreaded part of my morning to turn on the computer and see the pile up of the emails from the night before. And even worse was when I would come back from a week of vacation and see hundreds of emails waiting for me. 

I would try my best to answer as many as possible before starting the next round of back to back meetings. Sometimes it felt like my whole job consisted of typing out carefully worded responses to topics I certainly didn’t care about. Naturally my own projects had to wait for a spare few minutes here and there when I could finally get a bit of work done. 

Now here we are in early retirement. No more worrying about inbox zero anymore. The only emails we need to answer are the comments we get from you guys in our amazing community.

Always on

In the meantime, something we certainly don’t miss about work is the need to be always on. In our experience, work wasn’t just a Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 thing. We found that there was an expectation to be available into the evening and on weekends as needed. Obviously company business was just so important that it superseded anything else going on in our lives. 

And of course social media just made it worse. We were expected to be available at any hour of the day to answer questions on whatsapp or slack or whatever platform the company liked to use. Sometimes my Whatsapp chat group from work would just keep buzzing all weekend. I can tell you that it felt so good to close out all those work-related Whatsapp groups after we retired. Today there’s no one chasing us down on a Saturday night to ask questions about Monday’s meeting and it is such a relief. 

Emergencies 

There were so many times in a week or even a day when we would be told to drop everything we were working on to deal with an “emergency”…whether real or imagined. This was always very frustrating because we were already working full tilt on our existing projects, which suddenly became weekend work.

Today our biggest emergencies are much less stressful in comparison. Yes, we occasionally run into issues with our airbnb or canceled flights but we can handle them in our own way and our own time. 

Chasing promotions 

Before I discovered the concept of financial independence, I felt like all my validation in life was wrapped up in my career. My career was my identity and every job was just another rung in the ladder. Obviously this was a very unsatisfying way to view life because, of course, I could never climb the ladder fast enough.

Fortunately, my self worth is no longer tied to external validation. I’m not working around the clock in the hopes that I’ll get a promotion. Instead we’re free to build our own purpose in life around the things that we actually care about.

One thing you might miss…

Of course, working life isn’t all bad. One thing that you might actually miss from the office is the opportunity to tackle a challenge on a regular basis and stretch your brain.

This should be a red flag for anyone considering early retirement. Yes, it’s great to have lots of free time and finally decompress but likely most of us won’t feel satisfied in the long run just sitting on the couch all day. 

We really believe in the importance of planning meaningful activities for yourself in early retirement. Whether it’s a creative project or volunteering or taking up a new hobby — pick something that will bring some satisfaction each day. There’s no need to head to the office just to get a sense of  accomplishment.