List the non-financial things work gives you and plan how to replace each one.
The first Monday after you stop work feels wonderful. There is no alarm, no commute and no inbox, and the second week still feels good. By the second or third month the days have no shape and your former colleagues are busy. Then at a family dinner an uncle asks what you do now, and you are not sure what to say.
This is the last module of the course. The seven modules before it were about money: your number, the path to it, and how to spend it down. This module covers what most plans skip, which is what you will do with your time and who you will be once work stops.
A job gives you more than a salary, and most of the extras go unnoticed until they are gone. Besides money, work gives you four things: structure, people, a sense of being useful, and an answer to "what do you do?"
Structure means that work decides when you get up, where you go and what you do for most of the day. Even people who complain about their schedule rely on it more than they realise.
People means colleagues. You see them more often than most friends, and often more than family. Many of those relationships exist only because of the job, and they tend to fade when it ends.
Usefulness means that someone needs your work, a problem gets solved because you were there, and each week something exists that did not before. Leisure alone rarely gives you this feeling.
Identity comes from the answer to that question. In Singapore, as in many places, "what do you do?" comes early in most conversations, and your job title is shorthand for who you are. Without one, people can feel strangely unplaced.
People who find early retirement harder than expected rarely give money as the reason. More often they describe losing all four things on the same day with nothing set up to replace them. Some travel for a year, which works until it stops working. Some drift, which means more screen time than they intended, and they feel worse for it. Some go back to work because they miss what came with it, even though they do not need the money.
Stopping work is not a mistake. But a plan for the money without a plan for the time is half a plan. Each of the four can be replaced, but that will not happen by accident.
To replace structure, you need a regular commitment. That could be a class on fixed mornings, a volunteering shift, a part-time role, or a training routine with a group. To replace people, you need any setting where you meet the same faces regularly, such as a community group, a sports club, a course, or a project with others. Usefulness can come from volunteering, mentoring, caring for family, building something, or paid work you choose. For identity, any of these can be your answer to "what do you do?" if you say it with conviction.
Part-time work, the barista version from lesson 5.2, can supply all four at once. That is one reason some people choose it even when they could afford not to.
You met Priya, 34, in earlier modules. She is a marketing manager. Her job gives her a fixed rhythm for structure and a team she likes for people. It gives her usefulness through the satisfaction of a campaign that works, and identity through the title of marketing manager.
For structure after she stops, she has planned pottery classes on fixed mornings and a weekly volunteering shift with a literacy programme. The pottery studio and the other volunteers will be her people. Freelance projects for small charities will give her usefulness. Her identity answer is "I make things and help small charities with their marketing." The identity answer was the hardest to write and the structure answer was the easiest, and that told her where to start.
Imagine stopping work and notice where your thoughts go. If you mostly think about what you will leave behind, you may be running away from work. If you think about what you will do instead, you are running towards something.
People who are only running away often find the relief wears off quickly. The problem is gone, but nothing has taken its place. People running towards a project, a skill, more time with family, or a community tend to have a clearer reason to get up in the morning.
Writing down a replacement for each of the four shows you which kind of plan you have. If the answers come easily and excite you, that is good. If you struggle, that is useful too, because it tells you there is work to do on the plan before you stop, and you still have time to do it.
Think about your own job as it actually is, not as you describe it on bad days. Before you think about replacements, list what it gives you in each of the four areas: structure, people, usefulness and identity. Then write down what would replace each one after you stop working. Notice which answers come easily and which are hard, because the hard ones show where the plan needs work before you stop. Finally, use the running away or running towards test on what you have written to judge which kind of plan you have.
List four things your work gives you besides money. Next to each, write what will replace it after you stop.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).