Ideas for Counting Down Final Year of Work?

Kickernick

Kickernick

Recycles dryer sheets
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This Wednesday - April Fool's Day - starts the one year countdown for my expected FIRE escape from MegaCorp on April 1, 2016.

My DW and I are already financially independent, but our plans are to work our last year and retire a few weeks short of my 50th birthday. I'm interested in what ideas the community here might have for one's final year of work?
 
I'm having trouble avoiding Zeno's paradox in my OMY. Down to about about 6 months now and every week just ...seems .....to .........stretch ...........................OOOUT.
 
I knew someone at work who had a countdown file in excel ="retirement date"-today()

It was a subtle way for them to count down the days without making it obvious what was going on
 
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Kickernick said:
This Wednesday - April Fool's Day - starts the one year countdown for my expected FIRE escape from MegaCorp on April 1, 2016.

My DW and I are already financially independent, but our plans are to work our last year and retire a few weeks short of my 50th birthday. I'm interested in what ideas the community here might have for one's final year of work?
Click to expand...

At home you could use those magnet numbers on your kitchen fridge to keep track of the 52 weeks. 365 Days might be too many magnets.:LOL:
 
What I did was to count down various activities. For instance, the last first, second, third fourth quarter report I had to do, the last year end audit I had to work on, the last budget numbers I had to produce, etc. At 6 months, I counted down each month end closing. I skipped weeks, but started counting down the working days with 3 months to go (I did have a countdown clock during the last 2 years).

Of special note was the countdown until I gave notice, one month before. That lifted much of the burden off me and made the last month a breeze. Giving more notice would've had the opposite effect.


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum
 
I counted down Mondays. It helps that some of them are holidays so you started out with less than 50 for the year.
 
Kickernick said:
This Wednesday - April Fool's Day - starts the one year countdown for my expected FIRE escape from MegaCorp on April 1, 2016.

My DW and I are already financially independent, but our plans are to work our last year and retire a few weeks short of my 50th birthday. I'm interested in what ideas the community here might have for one's final year of work?
Click to expand...
Is this an April Fools Day joke?:LOL:
 
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DW bought me this about half a year before I FIREd, although I hope she didn't pay that much for it. It was fun having it on my desk and seeing it count down the time. I've still got it and use it occasionally to count down to things I'm looking forward to like a camping trip or a music festival.
 
My third and second last month seemed to take forever. But the last month flew by if it gives any of you heart. I was very conscious of 'this is the last time I will do this' for every task near the end, obviously made me smile for those tasks I had grown tired of. Staying as busy as possible was the best medicine for me, slow days would be even more of a drag. Best of luck...
 
52 shot glasses and a bottle of your favorite. Each week take a shot and turn that glass upside down.

JDARNELL
 
At first, I kept the number in an Excel file. I started at about 2650 days left until retirement.

Also I didn't especially care who knew about my retirement, so for the last year or two or three I had two enigmatic numbers on the lower left corner of my whiteboard (on the wall, in my office). One was the number of days left, and the other was the number of work days left.

As my retirement got closer, on the advice of a co-worker I wrote each date until retirement on a separate line of lined notebook paper. I used both sides and had three columns. Then every day when I got to work, I would cross off those days that had passed. That was fun and a very graphic/tangible way to experience the passage of time.

My original username here was "Want2Retire" and as you can tell, I did. :D
 
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harley said:
DW bought me this about half a year before I FIREd, although I hope she didn't pay that much for it.
Click to expand...

DW bought me one of those (and paid $20 for it) for my birthday, about 6 months before I planned to retire. I kept it in my desk drawer, where only I could see it, until 30 days out when I went public with my retirement plans.

I bequeathed it to a co-worker who planned to retire the following year (but was bitten badly by the OMY bug and ended up hanging on for three more years :nonono:). Not sure who he passed it to because by that time I no longer gave a cr*p about what took place at the puzzle palace. :)
 
I used Big Day Lite (free), a nice little app for iOS devices. It counts down all days (incl. weekends and vacation), not work days if that's what you prefer.

The countdown gets "interesting" by around 50 days or so.
 
I have a countdown app on my phone. I started it to count the number of work days I have left. To calculate this, I estimated vacation, weekends, and other days away from the office. It basically tells me how many times I need to walk through the door. Every day when I come to work, I hit the countdown button and it's one more day gone.

I like to count only the days I have to walk through the door...


Sent from my Z10 using Tapatalk 2
 
I was hired on April Fools Day!
There are countdown apps, and yes, I had similar in excel. It counted how many days, weeks, minutes in very large letters.
 
Great ideas -

April Fool's Day 2016 happens to be on a Friday, 2 weeks after the bonuses get paid out and 2 weeks before my 50th Birthday. It seems more than a bit appropriate, so that's what I'm going with.

Love hearing all of the ideas. Just realized that next year is a leap year, so I guess I have 366 days to go as of today.
 
jon-nyc said:
I counted down Mondays. It helps that some of them are holidays so you started out with less than 50 for the year.
Click to expand...

I started counting down Mondays 250 weeks before I will be eligible for paid medical benefits. I celebrate each Monday by crossing one off the sheet. When I come back from a vacation I get to cross multiple Mondays off the sheet. I am now down to 30 weeks. Unfortunately paid medical is a necessary but not sufficient condition so I will have one more year or so to work; but, if it comes down to it, I can throw in the towel at any time after 30 more Mondays. :dance:

Marc
 
Assemble a colorful crepe paper chain with 52 links, and tape it to your office door or cubicle. Each Friday cut off one link, if you want give the link with a nice note to someone involved in your work (co-worker, customer, vendor) with a positive note written on the link.
 
I literally took a huge pack of post-its and did a numbered countdown, ripping one off everyday! It was great the smaller it got!
 
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