Work Less, Live More

There are a number of reasons why you might want to stop working fulltime well before you reach traditional retirement age. You may be reasonably happy at work, saving money, but wondering how long you can hold out against the gnawing sense that you're trading your life away. Or you may be a little further along, with ample savings, agonizing about whether you need to keep pounding away at a full-time career that no longer fires you up the way it once did. You may have tired of the long hours, the bills, the pressure, and the feeling there is never enough time to do the things that are important. Or you may just be ready to move on from what has come to feel like a constant diet of compromises, working for the man. You ask yourself: Do I really have to do this until I'm 65? Can I turn all this hard work into a ticket outta here?

By husbanding your financial resources, managing your expenses, and making a commitment to graduate from the traditional workplace, you can safely cut back your time on the job by years, even decades. Lots of people are doing this now, leaving full-time work in their 40s and 50s, even some precocious ones in their 30s. They have plenty of time to relax and focus on living a life of clarity and purpose. And you can, too.

Something Wrong in Paradise

Working life was never supposed to be as stressful as it has become. A vibrant modern economy full of opportunity and well-paying jobs was supposed to mean we would all be happily challenged, with enough money to buy the things we needed. Then we would enjoy this bounty during the leisure time freed up by our sparkling efficiency.

At least that was the theory.

But something happened to derail that vision. Instead of enjoying more leisure as our earning power went up, we decided we'd have to work even more to pay for all the goodies we couldn't live without. In fact, we really needed two incomes just to afford a place in a decent neighborhood. Now, rather than feeling energized and challenged by work, we feel stressed and trapped. The problem has less to do with the nature of the work and more with the amount of time we spend there: The hours that American workers put in today should really be called Overwork. Most career-track professional employment requires 55 or more hours a week of sustained in-the-workplace effort, along with more labor at home or on the road checking email and catching up on relevant business news. The average American worker logs nearly 48 hours a week on the job.

Some people can put in fewer hours, but the pace in their workplaces often makes it feel like more. And for many, leaving work early is like pasting a big target on their backs marked Fire Me First. With a mortgage, credit card debt, and an endless parade of bills, missing a few paychecks could even spell ruin. Life for many full-time workers has become an adrenaline rush of long hours, big spending, unrelenting stress, and poor health.