Is there anything better than the bucket plan in which you put your retirement resources into different buckets representing different time spans?

Answer: I'm not a fan of the bucket theory other than you should make sure you have enough liquid assets to cover near term expenses. Bucket theory assumes that the funds you will use in the long-term can be more aggressively invested. I am a believer in taking out funds considering this priority: (1) income from Social Security, pensions, annuities, Required Minimum Distributions, and taxable investment interest and dividends, (2) taxable investment principal, (3) deferred-tax principal, (3) tax-exempt investments. I also pay attention to what is needed to rebalance to my target allocation. In general, I put my highest risk investments in deferred-tax investments (or donor advised funds) and my lowest risk investments in taxable investments.