Early Retirement and the Efficient Time Frontier

I was trying to make plans with a friend to meet up for coffee the other day.  He has been early retired for a few years and seems to be basking in the glow of unfettered freedom.  My schedule was fairly open, so I threw out a number of possible dates.  Email after email, he seemed to find fault with every possible meeting time.  There was always something else.  Seven am was too early because his body doesn’t wake up naturally till eight.  Two in the afternoon was bad because the baby would still be napping.  If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought that he was trying to avoid me.  I never had this problem when he was CEO of a burgeoning internet company.  It seemed that even with young kids, a sky rocketing business, and an active social life, that he always had an abundance of time.  What had changed with early retirement to knock him so far off the efficient time frontier?

I’ve asked this question multiple times in the last year while dealing with retirees.  Are they just extremely protective of their free time?  Or does something change when we let go of our 9 to 5?

Adaption and Molding

Our minds, our habits are not set in stone.  They are adaptable.  Look no farther than our internet juiced society to see how we have been molded to a reality quite different than a few decades ago.  Our brains have changed to accommodate newer and faster input.  We can stare at our phones, answer calls, respond in short spurts to text messages, all while riding our bike.

This ability to sort through multiple stimuli simultaneously, respond efficiently, and still perform physical tasks is a perfect example of the efficient time frontier.  We have become skilled at fitting as much as imaginable into as little time and space as possible.

There simply is too much to see, too many social media posts to respond to, and too many places to go to and snap selfies.

Work Life Imbalance

Technology has allowed life and work to continuously encroach on each other.  In fact, these previously separate spheres have begun to meld in such a way that it is often hard to tell the difference.  How many of us field texts about work while sitting at the dinner table or watching a movie at the theater?

The upside is that there is always time to fit in a cup of coffee with a friend or cut out of the office in the middle of the day.  You don’t have to worry about missing work, you just bring it with you.

You don’t have to worry about missing life, you just bring it with you!

The efficient time frontier allows you to have it all.

Early Retirement

It falls apart with retirement.  The work half of the equation is extirpated from the balance.  There no longer needs to be equity.  So there is a reversal of the efficient time frontier.  The phone becomes less of a leash.  There are no urgent messages that take you away from your child’s school yard before parent teacher conferences.

The retiree expands to fill the open space and becomes rather inefficient.  Instead of finding ways to use technology to carry it all with, there is a reliance on an abundance of time.  Such that, the idea of waking up a few minutes early for coffee, or scheduling two events back to back becomes anathema.

The mind has rewired the neural pathways that have been jumbled by all the rushing and multitasking so common in our uber social media work based society.

Final Thoughts

In some ways I am a big supporter of the efficient time frontier.  I built economic and achievement oriented success based on my ability to do multiple things at once.  In the midst of a busy career, I have always felt there was extra time to fit in anything social or otherwise.

I wonder if moving towards retirement will undo the years of programming of my neural networks that have adapted to this stimuli rich environment.

And then I will be the one who struggles to find a free moment to make off the cuff plans.

I wouldn’t want to over schedule.

Would I?