Here's what I remember doing before retirement.
Three to five years beforehand:
1.) move my investments to my planned retirement AA, instead of my accumulation phase AA (in other words, from 100:0 to 45:55).
2.) attend pre-retirement seminars given by HR at work. These educated me on topics like how much my pension would be, when I would get it, what about health insurance, blah blah blah.
3.) Do a lot of online research about possible retirement locations, and spend my vacations visiting them.
4.) Keep good records of my expenses.
One to three years before retirement:
1.) Continue with all of this, except my investments were moved.
2.) Finish old long term projects at work, avoid taking on new projects.
Zero to one year before retirement:
1.) All of the above, except my investments were still in my retirement AA. Figure out how much income they would provide me, add my tiny pension, and make sure that my expenses would be covered.
2.) research what model of "retirement car" I wanted. Decided not to buy it until right after I retired, in order to avoid parking lot dings at work.
3.) start fixing up house to sell. Research methods for moving and how much that would cost. I ended up not moving for 7 years, but didn't know that at the time.
4.) Go through 20,000+ work e-mails and delete those that I didn't need any more. Delete other unnecessary digital files at work. OK, should have done that earlier. What a PITA!
5.) The week before I retired, I put a few (100?) e-mails that were important on a CD that I burned, with other important digital files, and gave that to my supervisor.
6.) Go through paper files at work and separate into those that need to be given to my supervisor, and those that need to be shredded.
7.) Shred what needs to be shredded, returned things borrowed from others, give the rest to my supervisor. Transfer classified materials according to procedures.
8.) Go to your doctor and get a physical.
9.) The last week I notified all my work related contacts of my retirement and gave them my supervisor's name, email, and phone number.
10.) Inform your car insurance of your retirement, since you may get a lower rate.
11.) Go through all the bureaucratic list of retirement tasks that your workplace gives you; things like having your computer account deleted, your access to databases turned off, and phone number re-assigned, blah blah blah. Get everything signed off as required.
12.) You know the stuff given to you by your work, for use at work only? Give the GOOD stuff that is in demand to your friends at work (and tell them that it is for work use only). I am thinking of the super nice high capacity hole punch that all the other scientists wanted and dropped by to borrow all the time, and my office chair, for example. The rest can go to office scavengers after you retire.
13.) The last day, send an e-mail to your colleagues saying what a privilege it was to work with them and so on (if it was).
All of this is going to vary depending on you, your plans, your job, your personality, and so on. I doubt that my list will be of any help at all. Really, I guess all that is absolutely necessary is to tell your supervisor that you are done, and walk out.
