Somewhat late to the party here..I will be 64 in January and plan to cut back to semi-retired status as of March 1st. It will be interesting since I am a lawyer with long-time clients and can't totally walk away. However, after losing 3 friends in the past 2 years, I realized that I need to take more time for myself and my husband and started strategizing my exit plan.
Right now, we are at our beloved home timeshare where we have enjoyed 2 weeks of beautiful weather, some nice meals out, a couple of movies and ....way too much work and work check-in for me. I long for the day when I won't have to check my e-mails multiple times per day. About the only way for me to totally escape is to go on cruises. We return to our timeshare for 2 weeks in January, and then have a Panama Canal cruise planned for March, a Mediterranean cruise planned for late fall, and a 27 day cruise from Singapore to Tokyo planned for January of 2021.
I plan to gradually transition clients to my colleagues over the next year. I am really looking forward to ending my commute, which is more than an hour each way. Getting rid of the commute alone will give me an extra day's worth of hours each week. I told my husband that in my first week home, I plan on staying in my sweats and binge-watching many of the tv shows that I hear people talking about so that I can stop being culturally illiterate