I'm 59 and have been "winding down" for a few years now and intend to continue winding down, but continuing to work, even if just a couple of hours per day or a day or two per week. I'm a self employed accountant and numbers of clients are steadily dwindling (with quite a big drop during covid because of Sunak's support exclusions which meant many clients closed down and never started again!), so that is fitting in with reducing working hours over time.
Ten years ago, I was at full capacity, working a few hours at weekends and at least 8 hours per day. Over the years I "tweaked" my clients to have more stuff automated, more work less time sensitive, was using automation and live bank feeds etc from as soon as they became commonplace. Book-keeping is no longer laboriously writing/typing transactions into the books/software - it's now just supervising the automation. Invoices are scanned and details extracted by OCR. VAT returns, accounts, etc are basically just a quick look over and press the submit button.
Yes, all that's taken a lot of time and effort to get clients on board, get them to accept internet banking (harder a decade ago), get them to forward emails instead of printing them and posting them, etc! But, now "work" is a dream. I can pop in and out of my office when I want and for as long as I want. Rather than spending all my time number crunching, I let the computer do all that in the background and I can spend my time talking to clients, helping their businesses, tax planning, etc none of which is time sensitive nor urgent.
I've basically been planning a long term wind down ever since I was 50. Never had any intention of keeping it running at full capacity and selling up. Never had any intention of intentionally closing it down on some kind of "fixed date" retirement.
I can foresee the number of clients continuing to decline as they naturally retire or sell up etc. Some "needy" clients who wouldn't embrace technology and new ways of working have been encouraged to find other accountants! I don't advertise nor market for new clients. Occasionally an existing client will refer me to a relative or colleague, so sometimes I'll take them on, sometimes not, all with an eye on my long time semi-retirement wind down. It's just so much easier and less stressful to continue dealing with existing clients that I've known for years than starting new working relationships with new clients.
I've pencilled in for giving up my office by the time I'm 67, and working exclusively from home, so will save a small fortune in office overheads at the same time as starting to take state pension! Looking at my current client base and client ages, I've forecast still having around 20-30 clients when I'm 67, which on average would take up maybe 5-10 hours of time per week and give me an income of similar to the state pension, so will fund my lifestyle along with SP. After that, who knows. It will depend on my state of health. I'd aim to carry on for another 5-10 years or so, and by that time, my remaining clients would be around retirement age, so would probably continue to dwindle. I can't see me still "working" when I'm pushing 80, but it wouldn't surprise me (assuming I'm still mentally and physically fit) to have a handful of simple tax return clients who've likewise retired or working part time in retirement. There was an old bloke in our village still doing a few tax returns when he was in his 90's!
But basically, working part time, and the work being very flexible, means I can do what I want, when I want, outside work. That frees me up to do voluntary work and my hobbies.