More and more clients with wanderlust or the desire to relocate appreciate the fact they can stay in touch with their advisors-no matter where they or the advisors may be. "We have a number of clients who have gravitated from Miami to someplace else, so we have meetings with these folks by phone and virtual annual meetings," Lee says.

As the partners of The Enrichment Group age along with the rest of us, the business is structured so they can set up a second home or even a primary residence just about anywhere that they can create a home office. This gives them the opportunity to take time off while continuing with a fairly intense work schedule. "So at age 55 or later, we can continue to say 'This is fun,'" says Lee. "We can enjoy it and make it easier to do, and stretch the length of time we're happy to stay in work clothes into our sixties and beyond. This industry is conducive to creating this kind of freedom if you structure things right."

Control Your Big Picture

While there are tons of ways to be more efficient, if you've identified more time away from the office as a priority that could make or break your happiness in the years ahead, you only have one option: Start taking the time off you need. It's key to making sure you're in the driver's seat of your practice rather than being driven by it. Of course, taking time away is not always easy to do since as a small business person it can sometimes be difficult to control the quantity of work that flows in the door, and just as difficult to turn away business.

But that makes it all the more important to take time away, says Kathleen Cotton, president of Cotton Financial Advisors Inc., in Lynwood, Wash. It's often a matter of imposing some sort of control and order on what can become a blur of work time. "Some people say, 'I'm only going to work four days a week. Or six hours a day.' That works for some people, but it can be hard to walk away since you still have work sitting on your desk. My solution," says Cotton,"is to leave town. If I didn't, I'd be in the office."

Cotton, 64, spends four months out of the office a year at four- and six-week intervals. Her time away is spent in her beachfront condo in Puerto Vallarta. She works three hours in the morning most weekdays while there, carefully planning her time away to coincide with her client portfolio reviews. Her three-person staff performs and writes the reviews for clients, and Cotton analyzes their work. On cooler days she can work on her deck, which overlooks nothing but the azure of the Pacific Ocean.

"If you're running your practice so you have freedom, you leverage yourself by delegating as much as possible," says Cotton, whose firm works with 117 clients and manages $60 million in assets. She is diligently shifting as many clients as possible to her staff planner. Usually, it's older clients who don't mind meeting with staff, as long as they know Cotton is around. "It can be tricky, but currently 36 clients are the staff planner's. Frankly, I don't do any of the initial financial planning anymore. My staff takes extensive meeting notes, and I supervise and approve their work, but if frees me up to do big-picture work," Cotton says. "You can work as long as you like, but the key is you have to have fun."

For Cotton, the author of more than five books and a regular column for the National Association of Personal Financial Advisers' newsletter, writing keeps her fresh.

Currently, she is updating two books she published electronically, Financial Planning for the Not-Yet Wealthy and Living Life Your Way (available on her website www.cottonfinancial.com). She also did the research and sent out a white paper to clients recently explaining the disparity between state and federal estate tax exemptions, and the tax liability they may find themselves facing unless they use a state-based marital Q-Tip trust to shelter the difference. As a result, area attorneys are finally starting to pick up on this avoidable liability, she says.

In the meantime, Cotton is already living the next stage of her goals, both at work and play. She closes her office each Friday at 1 p.m., allowing staff to take off early provided they've made up the time earlier in the week. She is glad to count their time and pay them for lunch if they eat in the office.

The next move is a literal one. Cotton and her architect husband are planning a home on Whidby Island, off the Washington coast. She'll ferry to and from when the office needs her, and work virtually the rest of the time. "You have to ask yourself, 'Where is the passion in your life?' That should be the driver of everything you do and the way you set things up. Can you work less and still make enough money? The fact is young retirees, in the advisor field and everywhere else, go out the door because they don't have control. You have to gain the control you need to continue working as long as you can," Cotton says.