A generic rule of thumb financial advisors have used for retirees is to withdraw 4% of their account balance each year in order to not out live your money.

However, interest rates have been at historic lows the last nine years, so conservative investors may need to accumulate more funds if they wish to use the 4% withdrawal rate.

As a Steven Covey advocate, Tom Anderson’s personal finance article on the CNBC website Monday caught my interest — 7 habits of highly effective retirement savers. You can read the entire article at www.cnbc.com/id/102545493 but here are your keys to success:

As the economy appears to be a bit stronger, now is a great time to try and position yourself for a financially stress-free retirement. One of the best ways is to eliminate as many fixed costs – your home mortgage is the primary great target.

Careful naming of IRA beneficiaries is critical. Merely putting a name on the beneficiary form is insufficient; a certain amount of thought, communication, and coordination is required to prevent loss of family wealth to taxation.

An IRA owner who wishes to pass on as much wealth as possible should carefully consider who should be named as a beneficiary. Wealth grows more quickly in the tax-free or tax-deferred environment inside an IRA. If some of your beneficiaries do not need the IRA funds for support, you should name the youngest possible designated beneficiaries to spread distributions over the longest possible time period. This minimizes RMDs, leaves more money to grow inside the IRA at its pre-tax rate of return and maximizes the amounts that can be passed on to heirs.

The pressure to be financially prepared for retirement is evident in the recent Gallup finding that saving for retirement is Americans’ top financial worry.

According to a 2011 Wells Fargo/Gallup Investor and Retirement Optimism Index survey, the value of investments is the key factor determining when pre-retired investors say they will retire, followed by their health, the cost of healthcare, and inflation. However, according to a more recent Wells Fargo/Gallup survey, U.S. investors are highly cautious about retirement savings, saying they would prefer secure investments with low growth potential over investments with high growth potential and a risk of lost principal.

Many of us struggle with how much cash in the bank we will need to be able to comfortably retire. Each person’s quality of life is defined so differently, that a simple mathematical equation often does not work perfectly. A recent study by Dimensional Fund Advisors provides a unique sliding scale approach that is worth evaluating.