10/26/2026
Just like answering emails all day at the office can appear productive but often isn't, there are things investors do that feel like planning that aren't.
Things that feel like planning but aren't include forecasting future market returns, predicting where interest rates are headed, anticipating tax law changes, and trying to figure out which way inflation will move. These activities consume time and mental energy without actually making much of a difference to the investor's overall retirement security.
Actual planning involves making decisions about variables you control. Setting a savings rate. Choosing an asset allocation. Selecting account types. Deciding when to retire. Estimating the lifestyle you want and what it will cost. These are the substantive decisions that determine outcomes.
Investors who confuse the two tend to spend years convinced they're doing what's required to retire, only to find they're mostly spinning their wheels while leaving much of the important work undone.
For pre-retirees, the practical implication is to audit the time spent on all planning activities and categorize each one. The hours spent reading market commentary, watching financial television, and following expert predictions are typically in the first category.
The hours spent calibrating the savings rate, reviewing the portfolio allocation, and making decisions about timing and lifestyle desires are typically in the second.
Reallocating attention from the first category to the second is one of the more powerful planning improvements available to most pre-retirees.
