In five years even the youngest Baby Boomer will be of retirement age.

They will not all be retired, some will still hang around on company boards, others will hang onto their talkback radio shows. More than anything though, the biggest birth cohort that Australia ever saw will be retired by then.

It is therefore important to understand how retirement works and what predictable stages we go through in retirement.

This column is based on the wonderful book The 4 Phases of Retirement by Dr Riley Moynes. Read and study it carefully if you are a fresh retiree or are going to retire soonish.

For younger readers my humble summary and interpretation will do the trick for now.

Moynes outlines the psychological journey retirees go through and offers a framework to understand and navigate your transition into a whole new stage of life.

As you guessed from the title of the book, there are four distinct phases of retirement.

This is the honeymoon phase of retirement. You finally break free of the routine that you followed for the past few decades.

You feel excited to be able to go to bed whenever you want. You sleep in every day.

Memories........

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