If you’re in your 50s or 60s and starting to think seriously about the next chapter of your life, there is a question I think we massively underestimate.

Where are you actually going to go?

I don’t mean where you’re going to travel.

I don’t mean whether you’re going to move house, spend winters somewhere warmer or finally take that three-week trip you’ve been talking about for years.

I mean something much more ordinary.

On a normal Tuesday morning, where are you physically going to spend your time?

For most of our working lives, the answer has largely been decided for us.

We have home.

We have work.

Perhaps we leave the house at 7.30am, travel to an office and spend eight hours surrounded by other people.

Perhaps we work on a building site, in a school, a hospital, a shop or somewhere completely different.

Even if you work from home some of the time, work still creates a structure around your day.

Then retirement arrives and one of those major places can suddenly disappear.

That creates a gap that I don’t think we talk about enough.

Because work isn’t only something we do.

For many of us, work is somewhere we go.

And when you remove it, the question becomes:

Where will you go instead?

Work gives us more than a salary

When we talk about retirement planning, understandably, most of the conversation focuses on money.

Have I got enough in my pension?

When should I take my State Pension?

How much can I afford to spend?

Should I pay off my mortgage?

How should my investments be structured?

All important questions.

But there is another part of work that is much harder to put on a spreadsheet.

Work gives us an architecture for our lives.

It gives us somewhere to be.

It creates rhythm.

Routine.

Human interaction.

Shared experiences.

Problems to solve.

People to talk to.

Perhaps someone makes you a cup of tea every morning.

Perhaps you always have lunch with the same colleague.

Perhaps there is someone you talk football with.

Maybe you have a five-minute conversation in the corridor with somebody you would never consider a close friend.

None of those interactions seem particularly significant while they’re happening.

They’re just part of your day.

Until they’re gone.

When work stops, those little moments can disappear with it.

“I haven’t got anywhere to be”

I had a conversation with a client recently who I’ll call David.

David had stopped working and financially he was absolutely fine.

He wasn’t in crisis.

He wasn’t desperately unhappy.

He certainly didn’t want to go back to his old job.

But he said something that really stuck with me.

“I haven’t got anywhere to be.”

That was the problem.

He was spending far more time at home than he had ever done before.

Initially, that was quite nice.

No commute.

No alarm clock.

No meetings.

No deadlines.

No office politics.

But after a while, something changed.

He started feeling that he should be somewhere.

Not at work.

Just somewhere else.

Somewhere outside the house.

Somewhere where he would see other people.

Somewhere where people might notice whether he turned up or not.

And that is where the idea of the third place becomes really interesting.

What is a third place?

The concept was popularised by American sociologist Ray Oldenburg, particularly through his book The Great Good Place.

Oldenburg described three important places in our lives.

Your first place is your home.

Your second place is your work.

And then there is your third place.

Your third place is somewhere else entirely.

Crucially, it isn’t somewhere you have to go.

It’s somewhere you choose to go.

It might be your golf club.

Your local café.

A bowls club.

A Men’s Shed.

A community centre.

A running club.

Your local parkrun every Saturday morning.

A padel club.

A walking group.

The University of the Third Age.

A community choir.

A gardening club.

A volunteering group.

It doesn’t really matter what it is.

What matters is that it becomes a regular place where you spend time around other people.

You start recognising faces.

People start recognising you.

Eventually, somebody notices when you haven’t been for a couple of weeks.

That sense of belonging can become an incredibly important part of life after work.

The hidden social architecture of work

This matters because there is growing awareness of loneliness and social isolation across the UK.

Millions of people report feeling lonely often or always, and the transition out of employment can potentially make social isolation worse for some people.

It makes sense when you think about it.

At work, social interaction requires very little effort.

You walk into the office and someone is there.

You make a cup of tea and somebody walks into the kitchen.

You sit in a meeting with six other people.

Someone asks what you did at the weekend.

You discuss a problem with a colleague.

You bump into someone in the corridor.

You might not consider these people your closest friends.

You probably aren’t inviting all of them to your birthday party.

But those small interactions still matter.

Then you retire.

Suddenly, social connection requires intention.

Nobody is automatically sitting at the next desk.

There isn’t a meeting at 10am.

There isn’t someone in the kitchen making coffee.

If you want interaction, you have to create it.

And that is a very different way of living.

Why retirement planning should include geography

This is why I think retirement planning needs to include a conversation about geography.

Where will you physically spend your week?

Imagine your normal working week now.

Perhaps Monday to Friday involves going somewhere for work.

Then remove work completely.

What fills those spaces?

Monday morning.

Tuesday afternoon.

Wednesday lunchtime.

Thursday morning.

Friday afternoon.

Where are you?

If the answer to nearly all of those questions is at home, that’s worth thinking about.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being at home.

Home should hopefully be somewhere you enjoy spending time.

But going from spending perhaps 40 or 50 hours a week somewhere else to spending nearly all of your time at home can be a huge change.

Particularly if your partner is going through the same transition.

Suddenly, two people who might previously have spent eight or ten hours apart every weekday are together almost constantly.

That can require adjustment too.

Having places outside the home where each of you can maintain your own interests, communities and relationships can be incredibly valuable.

Aristotle might have understood the problem

Interestingly, the importance of community isn’t a particularly modern discovery.

Aristotle was thinking about it more than 2,000 years ago.

He believed human beings were fundamentally social creatures.

When he described humans as political animals, he wasn’t talking about Westminster, political parties or elections in the way we might interpret the word today.

He was talking about our relationship with the community.

We are built to live alongside other people.

To contribute.

To participate.

To belong.

This formed part of his thinking around eudaimonia.

Eudaimonia is often translated as happiness, but I think “human flourishing” gets much closer to what Aristotle meant.

It’s the idea of living well.

Not simply experiencing pleasure.

Not simply having money.

But developing your abilities, building relationships, contributing to something and living a life that has meaning.

And community is part of that.

You can have a brilliant pension plan and still feel disconnected.

You can have a beautiful house and still feel lonely.

You can have plenty of money and still feel as if something is missing.

Financial wellbeing matters.

But it is only one component of a good life.

What’s your third place now?

Here is a simple exercise.

It should take about ten minutes.

Get a blank piece of paper and divide it into three columns.

At the top of the first column write:

Where do I go?

In the second:

How often?

And in the third:

How does it make me feel?

Now think about all the places you currently go that aren’t home, work, shopping or somewhere you visit simply to complete a chore.

Where do you go because you choose to be there?

Perhaps you play golf every Wednesday.

Maybe you go to the gym three times a week.

Perhaps you have a coffee in the same café every Friday.

Maybe you’re part of a cycling club.

Perhaps you volunteer once a fortnight.

Maybe you go to church.

Perhaps you attend a book club.

Write them down.

Then look at how often you actually go.

Weekly?

Monthly?

Occasionally?

Hardly ever?

Finally, think about how you feel when you’re there.

Do you enjoy yourself?

Do you talk to people?

Do people know your name?

Do you feel part of something?

Do you normally feel better after going than you did before?

You’re looking for clues.

Is your social life actually your work life?

This exercise can reveal something else that is really important.

You might realise that you have plenty of social interaction.

But almost all of it happens through work.

You talk to people all day.

You have lunch with colleagues.

You see clients.

You travel to meetings.

You attend conferences.

You might even socialise with colleagues after work.

So if I asked whether you were socially connected, you would probably say yes.

And you’d be right.

But then ask another question:

How much of that connection survives when work disappears?

That’s a very different question.

If 80 per cent of your regular interaction comes through work, retirement isn’t only a career change.

It’s a significant change to your social world.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t retire.

It simply means you might want to start building the next bit before you leave.

It’s one of the reasons I often think a gradual transition from work can be helpful where it is practical.

It gives you time to build the new architecture before completely removing the old one.

What if you don’t have a third place?

If you complete the exercise and realise you haven’t really got a third place, don’t panic.

You don’t need to suddenly fill your diary with clubs.

Instead, experiment.

And I think there is a really simple rule that helps here.

I call it the Three Visit Rule.

Choose one place you’ve been considering trying.

Then commit to going three times.

Not once.

Three times.

That might be:

A Men’s Shed.

A local walking group.

A University of the Third Age group.

A parkrun.

A community choir.

A padel club.

A volunteering organisation.

A local sports club.

A gardening group.

A book club.

Anything that interests you.

The activity matters, but perhaps not as much as you think.

You’re also testing the community around it.

Why three visits?

Because the first visit to almost anywhere can be awkward.

You don’t know anyone.

Everyone else seems to know each other.

You don’t know where to sit.

You don’t know the rules.

You might spend half the time wondering whether you’ve made a terrible mistake.

That’s normal.

If you judge every new community based on your first 20 minutes, you could miss something brilliant.

The second visit is easier.

You recognise a couple of faces.

Perhaps somebody recognises you.

By the third visit, you have a much better idea of whether this might be somewhere you want to spend more time.

After that third visit, ask yourself two questions:

Did I interact with somebody I didn’t know before?

And:

Did I feel slightly better after going?

If the answer to both is yes, perhaps go a fourth time.

Then a fifth.

You don’t need to declare it your new community.

Just keep experimenting.

Don’t wait until retirement

Perhaps the most important point is this.

You don’t have to wait until retirement to find your third place.

In fact, I’d encourage you not to.

If you’re five years from retirement, start experimenting now.

If you’re two years away, definitely start now.

If you’re reducing your hours, use some of that extra time to explore.

Join something.

Try something.

Become a regular somewhere.

The aim is to avoid waking up on the first Monday of retirement with an empty diary and asking:

“What am I supposed to do now?”

Instead, imagine finishing work with something already waiting for you.

Wednesday is golf.

Friday morning is volunteering.

Saturday is parkrun.

Tuesday evening is your choir.

Thursday afternoon you meet the same group for coffee.

It doesn’t need to be busy.

Retirement isn’t about replacing a full work diary with a full leisure diary.

It’s about creating enough structure, connection and purpose to build a life you actually enjoy.

Your third place might surprise you

And don’t get too hung up on finding the “perfect” activity.

Your third place might not be something you’ve been doing for decades.

It could be completely new.

Perhaps you’ve never played padel.

Perhaps you’ve never volunteered.

Perhaps you’ve never joined a choir.

Perhaps you’ve always thought running clubs weren’t for you.

Perhaps you’ve never considered a Men’s Shed or the University of the Third Age.

That’s why experimentation matters.

You are allowed to try things and decide they’re not for you.

In fact, I think that is exactly what this stage of life should involve.

Try something.

Learn something.

Meet someone.

Keep what works.

Drop what doesn’t.

Then try something else.

Where will you be next Tuesday?

So here is the question I want you to think about.

Imagine work has finished.

Not today.

Not on your retirement party.

Not on the first Monday when it still feels like you’re on holiday.

Imagine it is six months later.

It’s an ordinary Tuesday.

You’ve had breakfast.

It’s 9.30am.

Where are you going?

If you immediately have an answer, brilliant.

Perhaps you’ve already built your third place.

If you don’t know, that’s useful information too.

Because you have time to start exploring.

Get that blank piece of paper.

Write down where you currently go.

Work out how often you’re there.

Think about how those places make you feel.

Then look for the gaps.

And if you haven’t found your third place yet, pick somewhere and give it three visits.

Because planning the next chapter of your life isn’t only about working out whether you have enough money.

It’s about working out what you want your days to look like when work no longer dictates them.

It’s about your physical wellbeing.

Your purpose.

Your relationships.

Your identity.

Your community.

And sometimes it comes down to a question that sounds almost ridiculously simple:

Where are you going to go?

Find somewhere you choose to be.

Find somewhere you enjoy being.

Find somewhere where people eventually know your name.

Find your third place.