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Job Hunting
Tip - Time Management
There is an old adage that "Looking for a job is harder than
working." How true! The rigors of job search are magnified by the
turmoil we experience: lack of self-confidence, humiliation,
financial pressure, and the undercurrent of emotions that color all
we do: fear, anger, depression, anxiety, loss. One practical step we
can take to lower the stress and conserve our energy for finding
work, not feeding our bloated worries, is to manage our time
effectively.
Have you ever noticed that you get more chores done when you’re
busy? If time is limited, we squeeze in those extra demands because
we know they have to get done by a deadline and we fear putting them
off. When time is unlimited, such as when you take a few days off
work, there is no pressure to rush—"I’ve got four days, I’ll do it
tomorrow." Suddenly, you are back at work and realize that you
didn’t accomplish half of what you had planned.
This lack of structure is magnified when you are unemployed. There
is no pressure to get up, get dressed, get out of the house by a
specific time. We know we have things to do. We need to update our
resume, create some new cover letters, research some possible job
openings. It is so hard to get started because we hate having to do
it, we don’t feel creative or excited about the whole prospect, and
we dread having to go through the horrors of interviewing. We
procrastinate, telling ourselves that when we are ready, it will
just "flow." For a few hours, a few days, we’ll just indulge
ourselves and relax.
When the end of the month arrives and we compare our diminishing
bank balance to our multiplying bills, we mentally beat ourselves up
for not having accomplished what we had so earnestly intended. Now
we generate our own pressure, magnified by guilt and self-reproach.
Stress levels and blood pressure rise. We feel resentful, angry,
depressed. "I didn’t ask to get into this situation. It’s unfair. I
hate it, I hate it, I hate it."
Adopting a reasonable schedule can avoid reaching this point. Try
these ideas:
1. Take a day to do nothing but plan out what you are going to do,
and when.
2. Concentrate on not over-committing yourself. You may be used to
working 8 or more hours per day and think that is what you will now
spend on job search. Remember that adage: your hunt for work is a
lot more difficult than simply walking into a familiar employer and
pursuing your daily routine. Recognize that and limit your job
hunting to fewer hours per day.
3. If you rigorously limit your job hunt-related activities to 4
hours per day to start (you can always increase later), you may find
yourself forced to stop before you are ready. This creates the
impetus to get you going the following day -- you can hardly wait to
get back to what you are working on.
4. When your "work time" is over, stop. Consciously focus your
attention on relaxing: take a walk, read a book, throw a ball, watch
television, whatever pleases you. You will be able to relax because
you know you completed exactly what you planned. The guilt, and the
sense of "I should have, I should be" no longer exist and you are
free, for a short time anyway, to do anything you want.
5. Identify your priorities by looking at what day of the week is
best for each kind of activity. If you are searching the
classifieds, Sunday is the premium time to do it. If you are
networking or cold calling, concentrate on the morning weekday
hours. Agency visits, whether for temporary work or head hunting,
can be relegated to the afternoons when employers are difficult to
reach and already fatigued.
6. Analyze your own daily energy patterns and put them to work for
you. Make sure that during your high energy periods you are "out
there," contacting people and presenting yourself. Use your low
energy times for solitary, mundane tasks: researching companies and
jobs, organizing your paperwork, planning your next day’s
activities.
The inevitable stress of unemployment and job search can never be
totally eliminated, but managing your time and being gentle with
yourself can turn a painful situation into simply an uncomfortable
nuisance.
Virginia Bola, PsyD
Email: bola07@comcast.net
Dr. Bola operated a rehabilitation company, developing innovative
job search techniques for disabled workers, for 20 years. A licensed
clinical psychologist, she developed vocational programs for the
mentally ill, served as a Vocational Expert for Social Security,
Civil Court, and pioneered vocational testimony in Workers’
Compensation Hearings. She is author of The Wolf at the Door: An
Unemployment Survival Manual (Authorhouse.com). Reach her at:
http://www.virginiabola.com
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