The Pretirement Sabbatical

You’re thinking of retiring in the next few years. You might not find it fun to think about that, so you suppress thoughts of retirement. Or if you think about it, you focus on retirement savings, activities in retirement, and so on.

But there’s a usually overlooked opportunity for your pre-retirement years. I call it the pretirement sabbatical. It’s a variation on the professor’s sabbatical, that six-month or year-long unpaid release from regular duties to acquire a new skill or knowledge while reinvigorating one’s motivation. But unlike the traditional sabbatical, the pretirement sabbatical is not primarily to enhance your career but to set the stage for your central retirement activity.

In my PsychologyToday.com article today, I offer examples, including for people employed in situations in which it would seem approval would be unlikely.