Approaching retirement is a fantastic feeling, marking the beginning of a new and more tranquil chapter. While you might yearn for elements of your old job or feel a sense of aimlessness at first, there are plenty of things you won’t miss for long. Here are 27 things you’ll be glad you won’t have to do after retirement.
Attend Office Meetings
During Covid, meetings were an unavoidable part of life, taking place on Zoom or in-person at the office. Despite the sense of camaraderie created by office meetings, they quickly fill up your calendar and the novelty soon wears off. Once you’ve retired, you can relish some alone time when you’d otherwise be sat in the board room.
Get involved in office politics
There isn’t a job on Earth completely free from office politics, whether it’s a clash of personalities or hierarchical struggles. As a retiree, you can leave behind toxic power dynamics and focus on more meaningful social interactions.
Commute Every Day
Even those with the most picturesque commute to work will eventually get sick of the long office-bound slog. After decades of commuting daily, retirees can reclaim their morning routines without worrying about traffic or train delays.
Stress About Meeting Deadlines
As a working adult, each new week comes with a fresh deadline to worry about. Thankfully, the post-retirement age marks an end to these time-constrained tasks.
Call in Sick
Many people fear taking a sick day despite being unable to work. Due to our toxic productivity culture, we often feel guilty for claiming time off and taking a few days to rest. Once you’ve retired, you can take as much time as you need to recover from pesky colds or stomach bugs.
Follow a Strict Schedule
For many years your calendar has likely consisted of daily work tasks and meetings, with the occasional break squeezed between deadlines. Now that you’re retired, there’s no pressure to follow the strict schedule that has been curated by your employer.
Wake up early
“The early bird catches the worm” until they retire. Gone are the days of waking up before the sun to prepare for a long day at work. Instead, you can snooze your alarm as many times as you like.
Plan your vacations
For those working full-time, planning holidays takes a lot of coordination and prep work, especially if your partner has less or more time off than you. Retiring comes with the freedom to spontaneously book a holiday abroad, and if there’s a cheap flight leaving tomorrow, why not take it?
Wear Office Attire
Office culture is often defined by dress code. By this point in life, you’ve probably amassed a collection of suits and cufflinks, or pencil skirts and heels. Now that you’re retired, loungewear and PJs can become your new uniform.
Sit Through Rush-Hour Traffic
Ironically, the daily rush to work often leaves commuters crawling to the office at a snail’s pace. Thankfully, rush hour traffic is a thing of the past when you’re retired, and you can wait till the roads clear before driving anywhere.
Feel Compelled to Work Overtime
Feeling overworked and experiencing burnout are commonplace among those of working age. As a retiree, you’re no longer compelled to work overtime or agree to additional projects at the cost of your mental health.
Check Your Emails Constantly
You might’ve left work for the day, but that doesn’t stop the emails from flooding in. In the digital age, it can be hard to set communication boundaries, with many people checking their work messages long after they’ve clocked out. As a retiree, you can say goodbye to late-night email replies.
Worry That You’re Not Developing Professionally
In most lines of work, there’s an unspoken pressure to constantly develop professionally, whether this is chasing a promotion or completing a course. As soon as you retire, you can let go of this pressure and feel more relaxed as a result.
Stress Over The Performance of Others
We rarely work entirely alone, and while collaboration can make tasks more manageable, it can also lead to heated confrontations. Now that you’re retired, you won’t have to stress about how your colleagues are performing, and if their ideas align with yours.
Create Mundane To-Do Lists
As working folk, our to-do lists can look mundane and repetitive, consisting of meetings, deadlines, and office admin. Retiring is a wonderful opportunity to create fulfilling daily checklists that replace work tasks with hobbies.
Neglect Your Hobbies
There are only so many hours in the day, and most of these are spent working either at home or in the office. As a result, hobbies and passions can fall by the wayside in place of career-related tasks. Retirement is a perfect stage of life to reclaim the things you love doing.
Neglect Exercise
When you’re tired at the end of a stressful day, the last thing you’ll want to do is pick up some weights or go to the gym. This sets the unhealthy habit of neglecting exercise in motion. With more free time than ever as a retiree, you can start your fitness journey anew and feel the myriad benefits.
Order Your Coffees To Go
Studies show that consuming caffeine leads to a powerful dopamine hit, but it can be hard to enjoy your coffee when you always order it to go. Unhindered by time constraints and short work breaks, retirees can sit in a café and enjoy a peaceful brew.
Eat Packaged Lunches
After years of cold salads and packaged sandwiches, lunch times as a retiree are a golden opportunity to cook meals from scratch. Instead of scanning the supermarket fridges for anything vaguely appetising, you can rustle up something you’ll enjoy.
Miss Mealtimes With Your Partner
Clashing work schedules are the bane of romantic relationships, with many couples eating separately during the week. It’s important to make time for each other, and as soon as you retire, mealtimes together can resume.
Skimp On Sleep
Working full-time hours often means sacrificing sleep, whether it’s later nights from meeting deadlines, or early mornings to beat the traffic. One of the most immediate benefits of retirement is being able to get good quality sleep.
Fill Your Weekends
With only two days off per week, it’s easy to cram our free time with outings and social occasions, leaving us less rested than we’d like when Monday comes around. Once you retire, every day is a rest day, and you can spread these activities across the week.
Decline Weekday Invitations
Whether it’s Tuesday night birthday drinks or a mid-week wedding, you’ve likely declined a fair few invitations due to work commitments. Post-retirement, you won’t have to worry about booking time off for a weekday event.
Book Short Holidays
Nobody wants to travel across the world for a one-week holiday, with much of this time spent recovering from jet lag. Once retired, you won’t have to book short holidays that eat into your limited annual leave.
Travel During Peak Season
When we’re working, travel opportunities are squeezed into available time slots, and these are usually during peak season. But when you’ve retired, the world is your oyster. Suddenly, you’re able to travel throughout the year, meaning you’ll save money while avoiding the school holiday crowds.
Shorten Your Morning Routine
Slow mornings are therapeutic, allowing us to practice essential self-care and get the day off to a good start. You might be used to rushed mornings before work, but they will become a thing of the past once you retire.
Own Multiple Vehicles
Having two or more working adults per household probably means having multiple cars, a situation your wallet won’t be thanking you for. When you retire, consider selling one of these vehicles to cut down on automotive expenses.
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