A month ago, at the “3 years to retirement” kick-off, I committed to looking at 12 different areas of my life over the next year. The areas are ones that are likely to be important to me in my retirement. How did I do in month 1?

First and foremost, I figured out what this next year is going to look like as a process. I realized that the work is not really about answering all of the questions and creating my retirement plan; instead, it is about coming up with the pre-questions that I’ll need so that I can even know what to put in the retirement plan. Pre-planning my plan to create my retirement plan. Brainstorming in advance of planning, if you will.

Second, as part of that brainstorming, I recognized that I would need four things — a list of topics to look at in the next year (12-13ish, done), a to-do list tracker of things I need for the plan with a timeline (started), a full review of “additional” rituals/enhancements to consider adding to my implementation plan in order to ensure they happen (done), and some sort of ritual to celebrate each month the stages leading up to retirement (aka going out for dinner on the 27th of each month and blogging to announce the topic for the new month).

Did it work? I think it did.

For this month, I kicked off the brainstorming with the spiritual, legal and financial aspects of preparing for retirement. In effect, I’ve worked through each one enough to create the large to-do list below (23 items from month 1). Of the 23, I was surprised that only nine need to be done in the next year. I thought I would have much more pressing commitments in the end, and was worried that my pre-planning was going to overtax me. But, as I said, some of it is just brainstorming. The real retirement plan will be developed in the last two years before retirement, I’m just doing the pre-plan so far.

For the next year, I will indeed be doing some things. Under some general legal stuff, I’ll be updating Powers of Attorney, our will, etc. and under finances, we’ll review our mortgage and plans for Jacob’s education.

However, I was taken by surprise by one of the biggest “tasks” of the pre-planning cycle. I have looked at the buyback options for my pension several times in recent years, and with some of the delays with the Pension Centre, it’s been a challenge to get precise numbers. I left some of that to “last” in my planning for the month, and a week ago, I sent some emails to the Pension Centre and to my finance person. I got all the information I needed relatively quick, and it gelled really well. Andrea and I discussed it, and the plan is set. I’m going to do the buyback and make the purchase through transferring the money from my RRSP to the pension. There are potential risks if I die before a certain age, as Andrea would get less out of it, but the return is right and I can get both the return and greater years of service without locking in any additional funds…it’s really just moving dedicated pension savings from one bucket to another, and in doing so, I get a much bigger return in the long-run. We considered other options, but this gives me the benefit without tying our hands on other things. And those other things can still be done, I just decoupled them from the buyback question.

Over the next month, I’m going to do all the paperwork. It feels like it almost a done deal, which is a huge achievement for my month. May all the other months lead me to the same success. It’s interesting to note that I “enhanced” my commitment for this task by using professionals (finance, pension centre), involving a public accountability buddy (Andrea), and using public announcements (through the blog) as part of accountability. Maybe these rituals work too.

With month one complete, I was almost positive that I knew next month’s topic. But I’ve had something knocking at my brain for the last month, so that topic jumps to the head of the line. Stay tuned…

To-Do list after Month 1

Reminder of ritual options

1. Simple rituals
   • List the goals
   • Include checkboxes when completed
   • Schedule the activity
   • Add a duration element
   • Add a quantity element
   • Gamify to be a “chain” of achievements (the Seinfeld method)
2. Social engineering
   • Public announcement
   • Tribal (join a group)
   • Informal accountability (buddy)
   • Formal accountability (paid professional)
3. Participation and completion rituals using gamification
   • Performance / high score / personal best
   • Completion / participation element
4. Certification and combination rituals
   • Validation of completion (external)
   • Validation by test (standard)
   • Combination (through point systems)
5. Reward rituals
   • Simple
   • Combination