Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Master Plan?

This is the culmination of all your work.

Your Goals, Pillar information, prioritization, and dates have been copied to this sheet for you.

Review your work and if you are not satisfied, make any changes to the appropriate goal and/or category. If you want to print a copy for your use, select either Email Me My Master Plan or Download/Print My Master Plan and follow the instructions.

What is the 3 Month Plan?

This plan is created while you are still viewing your Master Plan.

To create your 3 Month Plan, drag and drop the goals you want to include in your 3 Month Plan and then click Save Goals.

To print your 3 month plan, click Download/Print My 3 Month Plan.

Once you finish your 3 Month Plan you have completed the DESIGNED RETIREMENTS^® process. You have created goals for your time in retirement and you are on your way to a successful, content retirement.

Congratulations!

What is the Wizard?

This helps you determine your goals for your time in retirement, complete with a plan to achieve them.

Yes – GOALS, not a bucket list, but goals that you develop holistically, and are prioritized by you. Implementing your plan enables you to create a successful, contented retirement since you are accomplishing what is important to YOU. Further, your time is not micro-managed in the DESIGNED RETIREMENTS^® process, but rather focused on your big goals.

In addition, you may want to complete this process with your spouse or significant other. It’s important to achieve alignment on goals since they may impact another’s life. So, consider this before and as you develop your plan.

What is the Brainstorm?

The purpose of the Brainstorm is to allow you to conceptualize what you want to do in retirement:

For Me – In this category, list goals focused on what you want to do for YOU. For example, drive across the country, see the Northern Lights, explore Rome, etc. These are trips, activities, etc. that you have always contemplated, but time or resources have not been available.
For Those Close To Me – List goals of how you want to help, mentor, counsel, or love those that are the closest to you. Simply put, how can you do your best for those you love.
What You Want To Improve Upon – Are there areas or activities in your life that you want to focus on and improve upon because they are important to you? Examples could be patience, swimming times, or meditation. If so, list them here.
For Others – What do you want to do for others who you would like to help in some way? This can be time or resource focused, but list those goals here so you can be assured they are cared for. Examples could be help at the food bank, meals on wheels, etc.

What are the Pillars?

The Retirement Pillars are: Financial, Physical, Social, Growth and Spiritual.

Financial – This pillar concerns your financial situation and your awareness of any constraints that may or may not exist in your retirement. A goal may affect this pillar by impacting your financial resources, positively or negatively, and you need to be aware of this before you act on a goal.
Physical – This pillar concerns your medical status and your awareness of any constraints that may affect your starting a goal. A goal may impact your physical well-being or challenge you physically and you need to understand any potential effects of the goal before starting.
Social – This pillar concerns your social interactions and social life. A goal may provide opportunities to maintain, improve or establish new relationships impacting this pillar.
Growth – This pillar concerns your ability to improve individually. A goal may help you improve on a current skill set, challenge you to obtain a new skill set, endeavor to try new experiences or share a skill you have with others.
Spiritual – This pillar concerns your spiritual life and a goal may impact this aspect of your life by either enhancing your current beliefs or investigating other avenues of religious experience.

Click the appropriate Pillar if you believe your goal is related to or impacts that pillar. You can have multiple clicks per goal. For example, a goal such as “learn yoga” may impact all pillars, depending on what you want to achieve.

At the bottom of the sheet, you will see %’s that total the clicks for that column and then derive a % of total for that pillar. It is important to review these %’s since they represent how you will be focusing your time in retirement. If you find, for example, that the Social Pillar has 70% and Physical 0%, you need to be comfortable that this is how you want to focus your time. If not, you should consider additional or revised goals that will better represent how you want to focus your time and then go back and revise your plan. This is the power of the Pillars since it allows you to foresee how you will be spending your time and you can revise or augment your goals to better reflect on the pillar or pillars you want to focus your time.

When you are complete, click the Save Goals button and then the Next button and your goals will automatically be copied to the next sheet.

What are the Priorities?

Prioritize your goals on a scale from 1 – 5 with 5 being high.

This is a simple, but critical exercise, since you are stating which goal or goals are most important to you and which will bring you the most satisfaction when complete. Or a goal that ranks high may be important for financial or physical reasons in order to accomplish another goal. This is YOUR ranking and important to only YOU.

Once you complete your ranking, click on Save and go to Next, which takes you to the Prioritization Final sheet. Here, your goals are ranked with #5 at the top, #4 following, etc. You should review this sheet in its entirety since this will serve as the basis of your Master and Three Month Plans.

If you wish to change anything, click on Back, and make any changes on the appropriate sheet. Once again, the info on the current sheet will be deleted, so you may want to take notes of the items you are not changing.

What are the Deadlines?

Within what time frame do you want to complete these goals?

If the Goal is Ongoing in nature, click the Ongoing block at the top of the month and it will be reflected as Ongoing in your Deadlines.