Remote Working and the End of Retirement

I retired in late 2016. I also retired in November 2018. I am still working. I am 72 next week.

That conundrum reflects a likely pattern for the future. The massive increase in working from home and remote working means never having to retire - or at least make it a less appealing prospect. It certainly removes the need for a big bang, 'that's it, I'm off to the golf course' retirement.

For me, after 35 years of working from home - essentially in a freelance capacity, I had three main sources of income. Three different main clients with different demands. Once I reached a stage in life where I didn't need quite so much money and found my ability to work long hours was reducing, I decided to step away from being the Editorial Coordinator of Blackstone's Criminal Practice, which took up about 40% of my working time, including an intense batch of activity that usually left me exhausted and (reportedly) difficult to live with. Two years later, I decided I wanted to travel more for longer periods and suspected that my standards and enthusiasm were slipping so I retired as Editor of Computers & Law and from work on the SCL website. (Covid-19 had a laugh about the travel ambitions.) I carried on with the remainder of my work, never urgent and never especially time-consuming, and cannot think of a reason to stop.

I see that pattern as a likely template for many now that you can do so many jobs from the beach or mountain. Moreover, a generation that cannot afford a mortgage until their parents pass on a deposit (or just pass on), is likely to need a continuing source of income well into their 70s. Extra income is always useful.

A lot of people will not have jobs that are amenable to remote working. But my inspiration for my pattern of 'retirement' was friends in my local area with manual skills (plumber, mechanic and small-scale builder). They just decided to do less - to pick and choose what was rewarding and reject what was a pain. That's the way many of us can go.

And if that choice is enabled, you can go on and on and on into a happy working retirement.

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