Back to Work on Our Terms

By Daren Anderson

The main event this week was both of us going back to work. Well, sort of. But what a different feel this new “work” had for both of us. Both Esterina and I worked for decades in large organizations and held various positions, I at Community Health Center, Inc., and she at the VA. Over the years we worked in different places, had a variety of different roles, and for a long time we both worked from home. But we always worked for someone, had a boss, and had a schedule that generally featured Monday to Friday hours.

This type of work has a cadence that is familiar to many people and generally includes an early morning alarm, a hectic lunch packing, a commute, squeezing in exercise, a rush to prepare dinner, and a “living for the weekend” type of feel. This cadence leads one to think about Wednesday as “hump day” and to celebrate Fridays with “TGIF.” It can feel as if you are wishing your life away. We both enjoyed our jobs, but this daily schedule, at this phase of life, was feeling increasingly constraining. We wanted more independence.

Quitting our jobs and leaving the country was what some might consider an extreme way to find that independence. Last June Esterina retired and, not far behind, on March 1, I followed suit. However, I don’t think either of us considers this true “retirement.” We’ve both spent decades refining our skills and developing our expertise in our fields, and we are not ready to stop using them altogether. We are lucky enough to have complementary skills that are in demand and can be utilized digitally and remotely. The big change from our past work, one that we are adjusting to officially this week, is that we are now working for ourselves.

Prior to leaving, we created and registered a new company, Anderson Healthcare Advisors, LLC. Officially it is a partnership, co-owned and administered by Esterina and me, that provides consulting services to selected clients. With this structure we are free to pursue opportunities that interest us and remain engaged to the extent that we’d like. Prior to leaving work I had put out a variety of feelers to companies and people that I had worked with over the years. Several expressed interest in our new venture, and as of this writing, we have contracts with four of them.

This week, we began working in earnest. We were not sure how it would feel to start working again after only two weeks of being retired in Italy. The truth is, it felt great. For me, it was energizing to dive back into topics like telehealth and rural healthcare improvement, to write memos and white papers, and to conduct some online research. What was most liberating was knowing that I could start work when I chose and stop when I wanted. This allowed us both to get up without an alarm, have a leisurely breakfast together, exercise when we wanted, and sit down at two different desks and work when and as long as we chose.

It’s only been a week, but so far we’ve both really appreciated being engaged on a limited basis and bringing a bit of structure into our as-yet unstructured lives. We know that we are incredibly lucky to have the freedom to do this — our work translates well to remote consulting, and we are at a stage of life where we have both the experience and flexibility to try it. Still, I suspect that some version of this approach might resonate with others who feel weighed down by the weekly grind. We worked in that rhythm for many years, preparing—perhaps unknowingly—for the option to step away. When the opportunity presented itself, we took it.

We also chose to define “work” more broadly than just the consulting engagements and as such to build in structured “work time” each day that we are not traveling. Both Esterina and I have a long list of things we would like to do that can be classified as “productive”. From writing blogs to creating art, to learning Italian, and perhaps even to writing a book, we both tried this week to create a structure of daily work that enables us to do so. While much of this week focused on the new consulting work, we both also used the structured work time to start pursuing our other goals as well.

I’ve been surprised at how many people, when contemplating the concept of retirement, worry about not having anything to do and being bored. Neither of us could imagine how this could be. But I will say that re-engaging in “work” demonstrated the importance of being productive. There are so many ways to be productive. But I can definitely see that getting up each day without some form of productive engagement could get old really fast.

So we’ve mapped out a new cadence for our new life. The schedule is loose and flexible. Perhaps you could call this semi-retirement. The good thing is that we can ramp up or ramp down the amount of work, and we have the freedom to deviate from the plan at any time. The main thing that we both craved at this phase of our lives was more freedom. And that is what our new lives now provide.

It’s only been a week, so we’ll call this a pilot. But already it feels like we’ve found something we were both craving — not retirement, exactly, and not work as we knew it, but something in between. A rhythm with purpose, structure without rigidity, and days that feel intentionally shaped rather than scheduled. At this point, I think this next chapter may be less about stepping away from work, and more about defining what work means for us.

Views from my new “desks”.