Is Keeping Busy Good?

I retired less than a year ago. Before I retired, the most frequent question I was asked was, “What will you do?” Now, it is “Are you keeping busy?” Have you ever thought about what keeping busy means? I do not believe in keeping busy. Playing a game on your phone is keeping busy, as is drinking whiskey every day with your buddies.

In my retirement, I don’t want a fixed schedule, but I want to do more than keep busy or kill time. I want to spend my time doing something meaningful. It doesn’t have to be working for a charity or knitting sweaters for people. I write. It is meaningful to me because I might help some people get healthier or lose weight. It is not for the money. My book, The Three Rules to Lose Weight and Keep It Off Forever, is meaningful regardless of whether others buy it. I can only control what I do.

I also find exercise meaningful, though it helps no one other than myself. The same is true with learning to draw. It is very unlikely that I will ever show my drawings at a gallery, and probably less likely than I will skydive next week. That is not the point. Meaning is within. But keeping busy is not meaningful by itself. Meditation is meaningful to many people, and no one would say it is keeping busy twiddling your thumbs.

The point I am making is there is no reason to talk about keeping busy. Doing something productive and meaningful matters, whether you are working or retired. Even on vacation, I like to do something meaningful—exercise, read a book, and see the sites. I don’t think about keeping busy.

Opportunity cost represents the potential benefits that a business, an investor, or an individual consumer misses out on when choosing one alternative over another.

Opportunity cost usually refers to money. If you buy a television for $1000, you don’t have $1000 to spend on food. We don’t think of the opportunity cost of time very much. I don’t do my lawn. Let’s say I pay the lawn company fifty dollars to mow my lawn. I don’t have the fifty dollars to go to dinner with my wife (If I would have gone someplace cheap). But, if I spend ninety minutes doing my lawn, I won’t have ninety minutes to read a book, talk to my wife, or fish with my son.

When we are young, we mainly think of the opportunity cost of money and don’t worry about time. We might drive fifteen hours rather than spend the money on a flight. We’ll ask a friend to give up three hours of their day to pick us up at the airport rather than taking a shuttle or an Uber. Maybe that’s appropriate when we’re young.

Many people ignore the opportunity cost of time even when they’re my age or older. I ask people in their sixties when they plan to retire. They might say, “six years.” Why? They need the money to retire. Read my post on actuarial tables. We don’t know how much time we have. I recently retired at fifty-five, and patients told me I was so young. They can only say I am young if they know how long I’ll live. If I work five more years and die or become disabled at sixty, then those five years of salary would have cost me fifty hours a week for the rest of my life.

Ryan Holiday quotes Seneca: No person hands out their money to passersby, but to how many do each of us hand out our lives! We’re tight-fisted with property and money, yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest misers. I can prove it’s true. If you had a million dollars and knew for sure you had ten years left to live. You’re forced to choose between giving up a million dollars or the ten years remaining in your life. Which would you choose?

In his superb book, Die with Zero, Bill Perkins teaches that money’s main or only value is buying experiences. If you give up experiences so you can earn more money, it is self-defeating. Working until you are 70 when you could retire at 62, costs you all the experiences you could have had for eight years. That is always a loss. I am healthy, but cannot do many things I could have done only a few years ago. No one at 70 can do what they did at 60. Even if you could, you might not want to at 70. Those experiences are lost forever.

I am not telling you what to do with your time or money. I am telling you not to ignore the opportunity cost of time. Watching TV means you can’t read a book. Doing your lawn means you can’t meet your friend for lunch. Working three more years means you miss out on several vacations with your family forever.

If I have a deathbed, I don’t want to lie on it regretting not spending time with my family or doing something meaningful. I certainly won’t regret not working for a few more years to earn a few more dollars.

I listened to a superb financial podcast today. Benjamin Brandt talked about the 60/40 rule of investing, but I was more interested in the discussion he had with another advisor regarding where to move in retirement. Brandt mentioned that the taxes you pay in retirement should not be the major factor in where you live. Instead, you should consider what is important to you. He talked about golf, the proximity to an airport, and the weather. I agree that each person must decide for themself what is important, though I don’t care much about golf or the airport.

I recently retired. My wife still works, but we often discuss what we will do after she retires. Many people ask if we‘ll leave Minnesota and go somewhere warm with lower taxes, like Florida. What is most important to me and my wife is to live near our son, who currently lives about twenty minutes from us.

I no longer enjoy the cold, especially since I developed Raynaud syndrome. So, what? It is more important to me to live near our son. I will not move to Florida unless he moves there first. If I say that the most important thing for me is to live near him and his future family, then I will do what it takes. I will tolerate the cold. What about the income tax in Minnesota? As the podcasters said, income tax in retirement should not be the decision-maker. Decide what is important. I’ll pay the tax to be near the ones I love.

Every major decision should be considered the same way: Decide what is important to you. That is not as easy as it sounds. It is similar to Stephen Covey’s concept of Begin with the End In Mind. You decide what is important to you, and you do what it takes to make it happen. Of course, you will not always succeed.

Most people do not meticulously think about what is important to them. If they do, they don’t often do what it takes. In my practice, patients frequently said that losing weight was the most important thing. I asked what they were doing to lose weight, and they were usually vague, saying something like, “I’m eating better.” I asked about exercise, and they didn’t have time. You would think that if weight loss were the most important thing, they would exercise instead of streaming shows or surfing the web.

I’d ask about a gym membership, but they couldn’t afford it. Changing to a prepaid phone plan would pay for a gym membership, and canceling cable TV would pay for two. Three lattes a week at Starbucks would cover membership at Anytime Fitness.

I’m not saying everyone should forego lattes and an iPhone. If you have to make a financial choice, as we all do, then choose the one that is important to you.

As a physician for over thirty years, I spent quite a bit of time trying to help people become healthier. I am writing a book on what we can do in our daily lives to live a longer life, and exercise and weight control are the most important changes most people can make. In The Three Rules to Lose Weight and Keep It Off Forever, Second Edition, I describe a plan that works, but you have to give up three types of carbs. I believe it works better than any other plan, and you don‘t need to be hungry. When I discuss it with people, they are very often unable or unwilling to give up certain foods, such as bread or pasta. It wasn‘t easy, but I did it because losing weight and keeping it off was important to me, more important than baked ziti or bagels.

Life is made up of choices. You cannot have everything. You can never have enough money to buy everything you could possibly want, and you don’t have enough time to do everything you might want to do. And if your son lives in Minnesota, you cannot avoid the cold if you want to live near him. Choose what to do by first deciding what is truly important to you.

Stop Killing Time. You can think of hundreds of things to do better than that.

Several years ago, a retired person I knew told me about a game on their phone. I told them that I don‘t play games on my phone, and they said, “It‘s a good way to kill time.” Kill time? Why would I want to do that?

Benjamin Franklin, in Poor Richard‘s Almanack, said, “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander Time; for that’s the Stuff Life is made of.“ Centuries before Franklin, Seneca said, “We’re tight-fisted with property and money, yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest misers.“ And more recently, Tony Stark quoted his father as saying, “No amount of money can buy a second of time.“

I am not saying that you shouldn‘t enjoy yourself. If you want to play a game on your phone or binge-watch Netflix, then do it. Think it through, and do it with intent. Hang out with your friends and gossip. Fine. But do it with purpose. Do not do it because you are just killing time between getting home from work and going to bed.

Stop killing time out of habit. When I was practicing medicine, patients told me they had no time to exercise. A few minutes later, they mentioned the shows they were watching. I like television too, but if you cut back a bit, you would have time to exercise or do many activities more productive than ten straight episodes of Larry David, or whatever his show is called.

It takes effort to stop killing time. Since January 18, I have not had a job since I graduated from medical school over thirty years ago. I do not have a strict agenda. If I want to be productive and do something meaningful, I must think ahead and make a plan. It‘s not difficult. Think of a few activities that you find meaningful and do them. I exercise, write, manage this blog, shop, cook, learn to draw, and play piano. When my wife is home, we find meaningful activities we do together. Plan ahead and Begin With The End in Mind.

Spend time with your loved ones. Make them something, write them a letter, or plan a trip. If you‘re bored, don‘t drink alcohol, don‘t eat junk food, and don‘t go on TikTok. Any book on any shelf is better than social media. If you have trouble avoiding social media, check out Cal Newport and his book, Digital Minimalism.

The hardest part is not coming up with productive, meaningful things to do. There are blogs and books devoted to activities both before and during retirement. The hard part is starting. Once you start, it‘s easy. Say you want to learn to cook. Go to Udemy.com and sign up for a good book, drawing, painting, learning about money, writing, design, sewing, or photography. I could go on and on, but I don‘t have time. But whatever you choose, start immediately. Tomorrow never comes if you‘re procrastinating. And one day, it won‘t come at all.

Whatever you choose to do, make it meaningful. It doesn‘t have to make money or save the world. It only has to be meaningful to you. Don‘t mindlessly stream shows or flip channels (if people still do that) without any purpose. Even if you have a full-time job, don‘t kill the few hours you have for leisure. Act with intent. Stop Killing Time.

I left my medical practice of 19 years last week. I’ve had three parties celebrating my retirement, but I don’t call it retirement. Retirement used to mean quitting a job of 35 years, then sitting around and traveling for a few years. You lived off social security, perhaps a pension, and the money you had saved. I intend to be productive and do meaningful things.

I didn’t quit on a whim. I thought it through carefully. I don’t plan to join another practice or work nine to five in an office. I have other things to do. I hope to write, read, learn, travel, and work with my son on computer-related projects. Is that retirement? 

I may make some money here or there, but not at the level I earned at Allina Health. I’m fortunate that my wife is a physician, so money isn’t an issue. But in a few years, she may leave her practice and join me in my non-retirement.

My daily life will change starting this week. I will no longer go to the office, see patients, come home, and log into the computer to handle calls. I will do other things I find meaningful and productive. I’ll have more leisure time, but I don’t intend to sit around surfing the internet and streaming TV shows. If you find these activities meaningful, do them, but I have other things to do.

Is what I plan to do a retirement? The only material difference between my office job and my new life will be the amount of money I make. I will have a new set of benefits and downsides to my life. Our son has a good job but rarely goes to an office. He works on his computer at home or in a coffee shop. In my new life, I may join him and do my work on my computer. The only difference between us will be that he will make more money in the coffee shop than I will. The benefits of his day will be money and hopefully meaning–for me, only meaning. Many people make more than he does at their jobs, and some make about what I’ll make with my projects. Why am I retired, and the others aren’t? I may sell a thousand copies of a book while Michael Connelly sells a million. Why is he an author while I am a retiree?

It’s all made up. The real question is not, “How to know when to retire,” It’s “Should you continue doing what you are doing?” Every activity I do, I think about the benefits and the downsides. I don’t go to certain places on vacation because, for me, the downsides of crime or infections outweigh the benefits. The same is true with work. I decided that even with the money, the upsides of my job didn’t outweigh the downsides, so I “retired.” Early in my career, when I needed the money to buy a house and pay the bills, the reverse was true.

If you hate your job (a very subjective concept), then find a way to get a different one. If the money is less, decide if the benefits outweigh the negatives. If so, change jobs. If there is no better job, then accept that as a positive for staying in your current job. All choices are like that. Hopefully, at some point, you will be fortunate enough to live a meaningful life without needing a salary. But even then, before you “retire,” you need some benefits of leaving your job. Otherwise, don’t do it.

How to know when to retire is a straightforward question. Think of money as just one of the many benefits of your job. Money is a big upside early in a career because you may have a car payment, a mortgage, and kids to take care of. Later, if your mortgage and cars are paid off, and your kids are on their own, money is less important, and you can concentrate on other things. Sadly, many retirees did not understand the concept when they left their jobs, assuming that a life of leisure is wonderful, even with nothing meaningful to do. 

What is work-life balance?

What is work-life balance? Wikipedia defines it as the interface between work and personal life. Wikipedia is wrong. There is no such thing as work-life balance. Work is life. They are the same thing.

Yesterday, we had friends over for a dinner party. My wife and I cleaned the house (mostly she did), set a nice table, chopped vegetables, made sauces, cooked the salmon and side dishes, and served everything. After dinner, we cleared the table, my wife loaded the dishwasher (she is the world’s expert in efficient dishwasher loading), and after I went to bed, she cleaned the house. This morning, I emptied the dishwasher and put in another load. (I think I got about half the dishes in the dishwasher she did last night.) 

If my wife and I worked at a restaurant doing everything I just described, they would have paid us money, and we would have gotten a tip from the customers–in my case, nine percent. At the end of the shift, we might have complained about the job and how much we hated it. Some would say we needed a better work-life balance. 

How is what we did at home different than what hosts, cooks, busboys, servers, and dishwashers do for work? Nothing. They are the same thing. I often give general medical advice to friends or relatives. (I don’t give specific medical advice because that’s improper, but I tell them what home remedies to use and whether they should see their doctor.) I don’t consider advising my friends to be work, but I get paid money for giving similar advice at the office. If you pick up a friend at the airport, it’s no different than working for Uber and picking up a customer.

So, it’s work if you get money for it and not work if you don’t? That makes no sense. The only difference between cooking for friends and cooking for money is the benefit you get from one or the other. We decide that cooking dinner for friends is fun and working for a restaurant is not. Giving advice to a relative is good, but going to the office and doing the same is work and causes burnout. Uber for money is work, but picking up a friend isn’t? Ridiculous.

Tarzan said, “Only a fool performs any act without reason.” So, what are the reasons for working at a restaurant or doing the same thing for friends? Everything you do has upsides and downsides. Working at a restaurant gives you the benefit of money. We can spend that money on things we want. Hopefully, we also get some pleasure from providing a good experience for the restaurant’s patrons. The downsides are the effort we put in and the time we spend that we can’t spend doing something else. We didn’t get money from our friends, though they brought hummus, veggies, and wine. (I didn’t drink the wine, but the hummus was superb.) Other benefits of hosting the dinner were the pleasure of providing a good experience for our friends and our enjoyment of their company. Our time and effort were the same as if we had done it at a restaurant.

What we do in our personal lives is often identical to what we or others do at work. The only differences are the upsides of the activity. We decide that it’s work if an upside of the activity happens to be money. There are some downsides to working at a restaurant that don’t happen at home. I can choose the time of my dinner party, and they would make my schedule at a restaurant, but once I get there, the job is the same.

The point I’m making is this. Every activity has upsides and downsides. Think of them and decide what you want to do. Try to consider everything. I am leaving my medical practice in a few weeks. It’s a big deal because I’ve been a doctor for over thirty years. After I retire, I will still be active and productive, and I have many projects lined up, some for money and some for pleasure. I have decided that the upsides of practicing medicine no longer outweigh the downsides. Maybe someday I’ll decide that the upsides of hosting a dinner at my house no longer outweigh the downsides, and we’ll go out more. The money they pay you for your job is only one upside to that activity–the upside defines it as work. If the money and other positives outweigh the negatives, keep doing it. If not, then stop. Don’t consider what we call work to be any different than any other activity. Don’t try to improve your work-life balance. Work is life.

Should you move when you retire?

Obviously, it depends on many factors, but the answer is usually “No.” Like any decision, the best approach is to look at as many benefits and downsides as possible. What are the benefits of leaving, and what are the downsides of leaving? It’s that simple. I’m retiring from my clinical practice in about a month. The first question most people ask me is what I will do. That is the topic of a different blog. 

The next question is whether I will leave Minnesota. I ask them why I would do that, and they usually mention the weather and the taxes. Right off the bat, the answer is obvious. If I hated the weather and taxes so much, why haven’t I moved yet? I could have found a job in Florida. There are no income taxes there, and it is warm. I like working for Allina Health, but is there nothing comparable in Tennessee, another state without an income tax. What about Texas?

I haven’t moved to a warm climate without an income tax because I have more important reasons to stay in Minnesota. My wife is here, and my son is here. There it is. I care more about living with my wife and near my son than about the weather and the taxes. That formula will not change when I retire. When I tell people this, they ask what I’ll do when my wife retires. Same answer. I care more about living near my son than the weather and the taxes. I will not move from Minnesota unless my son moves. Fortunately, my wife agrees with me 100%, so I don’t have to contemplate what I’d do if my wife insisted on moving, though she wouldn’t be the woman I married if she preferred warm weather or lower taxes to being near our son.

Let’s think about the two big reasons people with money give when they move when they retire. First, the weather. I grew up in Miami, so I know a bit about moving to a new climate. Minnesota has nice summers and springs and perfect autumns. Winter is cold, though, so far; December this year has been warm this year because of El Niño.

From late February until April, I am tired of the cold weather. So, what? I can suck it up for a couple months, if it means I can live with my wife and see my son every week or two. And if I can afford to retire, can’t I afford a week or two in Florida?

What about taxes? This is even simpler. Minnesota has a top income tax bracket of 9.85%. Since the increase in tax is gradual, if you make $100,000, you will pay $4450.

Patients of mine who spend a lot of money tell me that you need more than $100,000 per month to retire. Let’s set that question aside because everyone has different needs. But you don’t pay taxes on what you spend, only on income. If you spend savings that aren’t in a retirement fund like a 401k, then you aren’t taxed on most of it–you are only taxed on capital gains and income from investments, which are likely less than $100,000. So your state income taxes are likely less than $4450. If you are earning more than $100,000 from investments, then you have enough money not to worry about $4450 or even $10000 in state income tax.

Another point about state income taxes is more important. Let’s say I move to Florida to save even ten thousand dollars in taxes per year. Our son still lives in Minnesota, so we will want to see him. Three trips to Minnesota would cost at least $10000. He could visit me, but do I want him to spend the money and give up his vacation time to visit me so I can save a few bucks?

I don’t see the reason to move when you retire unless you don’t have anything or anyone important enough to keep you where you are. And if that is the case, leave now, before you retire. Life is unpredictable. If possible, be where you want to be right now. Live the best life you can right now. If you are fortunate enough to have people in your life you care about, be near them right now.