For most of us, retirement planning does not rank high as a preferred leisure time activity. And it certainly doesn’t qualify as a core competency. 4 out of 10 Americans say they’re saving nothing for the future. Only a tiny percentage has gone to the trouble to work up a financial plan. Of those who have, more than half admit they can’t remember what it said. Maybe it’s hard to concentrate, certainly hard to relax, with all the noise out there. For 76-million boomers, gerontological clocks tick louder and louder. And, day after day, the alarm bells sound, with wakeup calls ringing 24/7. 2006 is just three months old, but it’s shaping up as the Year of the Sleepless Night. Here’s a first-quarter recap:

January 1: The New Year brings with it two key retirement-related anniversaries, but only one, the wrong one, gets much attention. Airwaves are flooded with news that the boomers start to turn sixty in 2006. There are lots of on-camera interviews with leading-edgers, mostly depicted as vital and active, possessed of healthy teeth and gums, and (at least for now) razor-sharp recall of long-ago days filled with flower power and social conscience. An army of graying trailblazers marches by, determined not to go gently into the dusk of retirement, which is now called, more happily, downshifting. 60 is the new 40. Small comfort. The other retirement-related milestone, the important one, goes largely ignored as the Year of the Sleepless Night dawns. 2006 is also when the 401(k) plan turns 25 – yes, the new age of financial self-determination has been staring retirement planning in the face for a full quarter-century. Trouble is, nobody issued much of a press release back then, one that laid out in detail the fact that the retirement game was going to change, that the days of secure corporate pensions and rock-solid Social Security were numbered. Instead, back in 1981, Congress called the new-fangled 401(k)s “salary reduction plans,” not an especially good marketing handle. (Anybody want your salary reduced? — raise your hand.) It was a while before people caught on. When, and if, they finally signed up for them, many workers weren’t sure how to invest their hard-earned salary reductions. Some were sensible and relied on conventional wisdom, kept their eggs in separate and nicely allocated baskets. They did okay. Others, plenty of them, were too aggressive, and rode the tech boom till it busted. Others still were too timid with their salary reductions and, for their prudence, wound up trailing the cost of living. Then there were those unlucky enough to feather their nests with their own company’s stock.

January 5: IBM announces it is freezing the pensions of 120,000 U.S. employees, while making some enhancements to its – yep — 401(k) program. The Year of the Sleepless Night is less than a week old and it has already delivered retirement planning’s “tipping point,” according to a trade publication for accountants.

January 30: The U.S. Commerce Department issues a report that also gets plenty of play: Americans’ personal savings rate has fallen to minus .5 percent, lower than at any time since the Depression. Some economists try to discount the implications, pointing out that Commerce’s numbers don’t take into account a not insubstantial family piggy bank called home equity. As far as retirement goes, this piggy bank could well prove useful, provided boomers will indeed downsize when they eventually downshift: reign in their spending, pay off their debts, settle for one SUV, not three in the driveway, and set up house in a space about the size of their current media room. But the jury is out the boomers’ willingness or fortitude to volunteer for lifestyle relapse. Says the chief economist at Standard & Poor’s, “Americans … have the feeling that it is wimpish to save.”

February 7: General Motors, having lost nearly $9 billion in the run up to the Year of the Sleepless Night, announces that its major cost-reduction initiative will include capping the legacy health benefits for hundreds of thousands of retirees. Starting in 2007, retired workers at the company once famously known as Generous Motors will face higher monthly contributions, deductibles, and prescription drug costs. The U.A.W and millions of former G.M. employees are not amused, nor should they be surprised. Large companies started trimming these costs well before the Year of the Sleepless Night; small companies usually don’t offer retirement health benefits to begin with. Sleep? You gotta kidding. Says a white paper issued by a major financial services firm: “A couple retiring today at age 65 should plan on spending at least $190,000 out of pocket over the course of retirement.” The figure does not include paying for time in a nursing home, in which one out of two people now 65 will find themselves, at least for a while.

April 1: You won’t read it in the paper but it’s a fact: Today is the first day of the new rest of your life. Don’t touch that snooze button. It’s time to get up, get up, you sleepy heads.