My Next Chapter: A Retirement Journey - Doing Professional-Type Things

Sometimes the things we do for pay are also things we enjoy on our own time. I’m far from the only R programmer who’s coded hobby projects for fun, or journalist who also wrote things not for pay, or data pro who analyzed info out of personal curiosity and not at work.

So it’s not surprising that I want to stay involved in all those areas in retirement. Details are still to come, but I’ve got some early ideas.

Writing is the easiest. I’ve got this new blog and email list as a new writing project, plus a neighborhood blog with some local newsy and events tidbits. Now it’s mostly highlighting interesting events, but I also publish candidate Q&As before local elections. And I’m mulling other projects. In a few months when the weather gets bad, I may consider freelancing for pay . . . or maybe not quite yet this winter. Or perhaps not ever. Still to be determined.

I coded a number of R hobby projects while still working, including an interactive app analyzing electricity generated by our rooftop solar panels, a design tool for mosaic crochet patterns, and a local events calendar that’s mostly automated. I’ve also created a couple of hobby generative AI public service projects, such as Framingham Recyclebot, where a chatbot answers questions about the city’s recycling program. And, I’ve looked at local campaign finance data in the past for my hobby blog.

If I want to keep doing working with R and generative AI (and learning Python), I think it’s important to keep up to date with these rapidly changing fields. Actually, I’m interested in keeping up in those fields even if I don’t put any of it to “practical use”. This is the perfect time of life to spend more time on learning purely for the fun of learning.

So even though I vowed to take the next couple of months “off” as an extended vacation from more serious decisions, I’ve still got a few professional things on my calendar.

Tomorrow afternoon is my first: AI + Data Journalism, a 90-minute training webinar from the Online News Association.

Next week, I’m virtually attending the Posit::Conf(2024) conference for open-source data science – mostly R, Python, and Posit-created open-source tools such as Positron and Shiny. I attended that for years in person for work, back when Posit (the company) was called RStudio. Since the pandemic, I’d been attending remotely, also for work. I’ll be remote again this year, although this time paying my own fee. On the bright side, that means I can go to whatever sessions I find most interesting, instead of ones that would be most useful for work.

And, later this month I’ll be speaking at one of Posit’s weekly data science hangouts.

I may even start watching some online on-demand tech classes again. And, I’ve just started outlining an idea for a new generative AI hobby project that’s been percolating in my mind for awhile.

Without a 40-hour work week, that should still leave plenty of time for other things.

But if it feels like I’m starting add too much to my days too soon? I’ll step back and not think twice about it. If the little voice which occasionally pops up to ask, “Shouldn’t you be getting more done today?” appears again, I’m shutting it right down. I’m on extended vacation through mid-autumn. As I read someone else say in a Slack group: I’m now the CEO of my own life. I plan to put that power and privilege to good use.