Having a Time Plan for Retirement

By Tanner Doudna

Over the past few months, I’ve done some personal “game planning”. This planning was more about time and priority management rather than financial game planning. With four growing children, my family’s day-to-day life is frequently changing, pivoting, and making new plans. I found that big priorities of mine (like health) weren’t getting the attention they used to get. I concluded that it was due to a lack of a game plan. It was time to “empty out the jar” and refill it.

In many areas of my life, I think of the Rocks, Pebbles, Sand analogy. The jar symbolizes the limited amount of time we have, the rocks symbolize big priorities, the pebbles symbolize smaller priorities, and the sand symbolizes everything else. If you fill your jar (time) with the sand first, you won’t be able to fit all of the rocks and pebbles. However, if you start to fill your jar with the rocks and then the pebbles, the sand will fill in the gaps, and everything will fit into the jar. I encourage you to figure out your rocks (big priorities) and make sure those get the attention they deserve.

Many folks think the American Dream is to acquire a bunch of money so that you can one day retire and sit at the beach / play golf all the time. Thinking you only need a financial plan for retirement is very dangerous. You need a time plan for retirement. Often, when we hear someone would like to retire someday or is ready to retire now, we ask, “What does that look like?” We’ve seen many clients struggle to answer that question. The statistics about the increases in depression and loneliness, as well as feeling a loss of purpose, are staggering. If you don’t have a plan for your time, low-priority time-suckers will fill your jar, and your health could suffer as a result. Whether you are far off from retirement, close to it, or in it, spend some time “emptying your jar” and re-organizing your priorities.