One of the surprises when you retire is how quickly the details you were focused on start to fade. That can be good—you’re more relaxed when you’re not worried about the myriad of details. Or it can be concerning—when you suddenly realize you’ve forgotten a lot of what you did and achieved.
One way to guard against this is to create your legacy as you go. There are three primary areas you will want to preserve
Relationships Activities Achievements
You have spent the last chapter of your life building relationships by attending conferences, doing joint ventures, promoting one another’s products. Once you stop doing those things, you may soon start to forget who you were dealing with. Take some time now to document those relationships as you go:
- Add names to the
- Upload your photos to a central location, such as Google photos or Amazon photos. Move them into folders—one folder per event, for example, with the name of the event and the date on
- Write short vignettes about people—how you met, the projects you worked on, spending time with them at a conference, that cruise you were on, etc.
Likewise, document your activities. If you have a digital calendar that has your travels, conferences, product launches, etc. on it, export it to a more permanent format like a PDF.
If you don’t have that type of calendar, start a spreadsheet with columns for dates, location, event, memories. Not only will you be amazed at how many things you did but you’ll start to recall some of the fun and admirable things you did along the way!
Document your achievements. Save a copy of each of your products and publications. Put them into a digital library you can search. You may be surprised how often you will need a piece of information. Save your annual revenue statements, number of subscribers each year, products produced each year, podcasts products, videos published. You’ll decide what you consider an achievement. Remember, once you retire and look back at your years online, you want to recall all that you did—not just that you worked like mad!
If these tasks feel like a lot of “work”, then you’re probably not ready to retire. But if you enjoy the process of looking back at your achievements proudly, then you’ll appreciate the importance of creating your legacy. Either way, you’ll thank me later!
For your Retire Online file, ask yourself:
- Where do I want to keep my photos?
- Do I need to go back and label my current photos?
- Do I have a digital copy of each of my products and publications that I can easily access?
- Do I have calendars or a list of cities where I have been since I started my online career?
