What will always be, I suspect, a one-off event for me happened yesterday.
When I had finished recording the last two videos in the series on tax transparency for developing country tax authorities that I have been making with Sheffield University, working in association with the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency, I concluded work on all the project deliverables that I expect to complete before my formal retirement from employment later this month, if not from work.
The curiosity of the event was highlighted by having another research project on sustainable cost accounting finish last Friday, with all project deliverables going in on time, and having concluded my work on the last chapter for which I am responsible for the Accounting Streams project on Monday.
Having spent the last 18 months or so working almost almost every moment available to me, starting with work on the Taxing Wealth Report 2024, and then on each of these projects, I suddenly find myself with a very different ‘to do' list.
Admittedly, there is admin to complete. No project concludes when the deliverables have been signed off. However, within another three or four weeks, I hope that all those issues will be concluded to broadly coincide with my official retirement date. Then, for the first time in what feels like a very long time, how I use my working hours will be very much a matter of my choosing.
My first choice is not to take on many other tasks. I've already turned down job offers and some invitations if they involve any significant amount of travel, simply because I want to have time to think more clearly about what I do next. Apart from continuing to write blogs and produce a daily video, absolutely nothing about that alternative potential future agenda is certain at present.
What I do know is that I will be working. I have no desire to stop doing so. There is just too much to do in this world. I am also utterly uninterested in the standard, supposed, retirement occupations of golf and multiple overseas holidays a year. Nothing is more undesirable to me. But I am letting the new ideas grow rather than rush them. That does seem to be appropriate now. And if I do a bit of birdwatching whilst doing that thinking, so be it.
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Richard, good luck with the short term work tidying up. Do whatever interests you and enjoy your time with Mrs Murphy.
Thanks
And photography I hope!
Yes…
Same for me, I am the same age as you (67 in June) and until the Cancer diagnoses last june had a pretty full diary with out little building/plumbing firm. Since then I have been very much more picky about what work I take on, regular customers call me and I will still undertake smaller jobs for them. It felt very weird having so much free time at first, but I have a couple of hobbies to keep my brain occupied, and I am lucky enough to have a fine workshop at the bottom of the garden for a couple of motorbikes I am “restoring”
I spent quite a while thinking about what I really want to do, and tobe honest for me it comes down to hobbies, camping in the UK dark sky sites with my telescope, messing around with my motorbikes, and quite a few projects in the garden and house.
Now I am starting to establish a routine I wonder how I had time for work. One thing I have noticed though is doing jobs for customers has become very much more of a social outing with the bonus it pays a few quid at the end, it feels more satisfying now maybe?
Take your time to work out what is right for you, and don’t set yourself deadlines, we’ve done all that for years, no more.
Good luck.
Thanks
Appreciated
@john haydon,
I hope you consider travelling to Bardsey Island (off the end of the Llyn Peninsula)! You can see lots of birds there as well as stars. We go to a caravan/lodge in Bwlchtocyn (near Abersoch) and despite street lights creeping much nearer than I’m happy with (not to mention some bungalows nearby leaving their security lighting on ALL NIGHT!) we can usually get a moderately decent view of the sky at night – when it isn’t raining of course!
I’d love to go to Bardsey – I’m too ill to make the journey now, and certainly wouldn’t be able to camp. Husband sailed there from Abersoch with his parents when he was in his teens. I’ve always envied him that voyage! It took several years before his Dad felt the weather was safe enough – crossing Porth Neigl (Hells Mouth) en route required particular winds.
Oh, and if you do decide to visit Bardsey, remember that sometimes if the wind blows high you can be stuck there for longer than expected!
I love the Llyn peninsula and have looked at Bardsey. I know Abersoch. One day I woukd love to go over.
I would hope that your advice, amongst others, will be needed by the Greens or a new party of the centre left fairly soon.
It’s available
I knew that you’d be getting the offers and invitations, possibly to go to the USA, where they would benefit from the counter-narrative that you communicate. You’ve already been to Jersey and Northern Ireland by plane this last 12 months so I don’t see a moral objection on emissions so long as the host can provably show that they are offsetting them. If you get a chance to go to Northern Utah with its concentration of wetlands, you should take it up.
Those flights were for funerals, not to give lectures.
I have no plan to go to the US, probably ever again. Doing so is on my ‘F*ckit’ list, as my wife describes it – things we are never going to do.
Why is it thought better for people to have to do miserable jobs for small amounts of money, rather than to have the freedom to do something useful that they enjoy? Your extra freedom to battle against fairy tale economics is worth 100 people doing dead end jobs.
Welcome to the exciting world of wisdom that comes with retirement. I hope you really enjoy doing the things you want to do as opposed to things you have to do.
When you get a moment could you clarify the similarities, differences, whatever, relating to:
The Fairness Foundation
Tax Justice Network
Tax Justice UK (a partner, but independent from, Tax Justice Network?)
It seems there are quite a few people making a living from these organisation and some of them don’t seem to understand how the economy really works – but maybe that’s a deliberate tactic to get through to those who think it runs like a household budget.
Quite a little industry seems to have grown up – no doubt vying with one another for funding. Is this a result of differences of opinion, differences of personality or something else? Is organising tax reformers similar to organising cats (or atheists)?
It does seem a shame that we aren’t all singing from the same hymn sheet (“United we stand” etc.) but I suppose having lots of people banging similar drums is a good thing.
Of course, we are mainly talking to ourselves given the state of our political parties and the unlikelihood that they will change even in light of the current madness.
Read this and the linked statement from John Christensen, I have no faith in TJN or TJUK. The Fairness Foundation has links with what went / is wrong in TJN. https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2021/08/05/i-resign-from-association-with-the-tax-justice-network/
Richard – Congratulations – You’ve made it!
Double negative coming up
Make sure you don’t do what you don’t have to ,anymore
I can recommend volunteering for your local Wildlife Trust, the RSPB or any conservation charity, on regular outdoor task days. I’ve been doing this for over 6 years and it is so rewarding to see the difference our conservation work has made.
I do not rule it out, but I am still driven by ideas.
Repetitive physical labour lets the mind roam free!
“bonne chance mon brave” – redesign your life around what you want to do. You are retiring only from one aspect of your life; the future will be productive – expanding on past experiences, exploring new experiences and achieving whatever you put your mind to. Possibly call it ‘rewiring’ not ‘retiring’ as per Jeri Sedlar.
That is a very good way of looking at it.
I am using bottom-up thinking. There is a (fairly) bloank canvas.
Congratulations, Richard! That IS a milestone. And it’s great that you are seeing it as freedom to do other work, of your own choosing, in your own time.
For me, retirement hit home (I retired on a Friday) when the next Monday morning rolled around, it was chucking down rain and lashing with wind, and I thought, “I don’t have to go out, if I don’t want to!” It was a great moment.
Enjoy having control of your day. And birdwatching. You will, I’m sure….
I am birdwatching tomorrow….
Congratulations to you, Ricchard. Well deserved for sure.
I will also be leaving the University of Sheffield at the end of the month. In my case I (along with around 300 of my colleagues) will be taking the voluntary severance offer that the uiniversity has pushed on its staff.
I am not sure if you have ever written on the financial state of UK HE?
Without wishing to give you more work I would be interested to hear your thoughts at some stage.
Send me a mail Colin
I was, bizarrely, offered that package when I had already said I wanted to go. I declined it as a result.
Good luck with finding other work.
I’m pleased Prof Murphy is continuing to write. I have leant so much from his You Tube videos, and latterly his daily blog.
I will be writing for as many years as I can.