4 ways to stay busy when you retire from work

4 ways to stay busy when you retire from work4 ways to stay busy when you retire from workWhen you leave the workforce and enter retirement, youll need a bunch of ways to stay busy. Heres what to do during your Golden Years.Do some deep thinkingAn articleabout how to manage all that time in retirementon the KnowledgeWharton website features information on what to consider.The first step is self-reflection. Start by doing a realistic assessment of what you enjoy about your job and what you stand to lose by retiring. On the one hand, you may feel ready to leave the working world, but on the other hand, as the reality of retirement takes hold, you may feel restless and uncertain, it reads.As you approach this time period, this could be a big help.Dont forget about everyone else in your lifeDave Hughes, founder of the website Retire Fabulously, writes about this in U.S. News World Report.Call, write to or visit a friend every day. Today, it is easier than ever to reconnect with friends from all stages of your life using social media tools such as Facebook, he writes. While social media provides a means for initial contact and surface-level interaction, you can cultivate more meaningful connections with people by calling them, writing a personal letter or email or, if they are local, getting together occasionally.Change your surroundingsReuters journalist Chris Taylor writes on the site about how moving when you retire can help you feel less lonely.Retirement communities are a powerful alternative to retiring in place in your own home. Staying in your home may initially sound appealing because of the comfort level with your surroundings, but it could eventually leave you very alone indeed, especially if you are struggling with physical disability, he writes.Be generous with your timeDont spend it all on yourself.Margaret Manning, a speaker, entrepreneur, author and founder of website Sixty and Me, writes on the site about how doing volunteer work in retirement can help stave off feelings of loneliness.Loneliness in retirement often stems from a sense of detachment from the world and a resulting lack of purpose, which then leads to shutting oneself away. Lonely people often make the mistake of thinking that no one wants to hear from them, that everyone else is too busy and that theyre better off just staying shut in by themselves, she writes. In this way, loneliness can become a self-compounding problem that gets worse over time. Whether you want to volunteer at your church or at a favorite charitable organization, there are many ways to help yourself stay energized by being generous to others.