Dealing With Unemployment: Making a Schedule

When you're unemployed one of the hardest things to deal with is all the free time you have during the day. It's easy to waste hours on useless activities like playing computers games or reading everything except the want ads. It's even easier to just sink into depression as the minutes tick by and you think about how useless, unlucky and angry you are.

If you set up a schedule it will help you stay active, help give you some purpose, and could mean the difference between depression and emotional well being.

Making a Schedule

When you're making a schedule you have to keep 2 things in mind. First you have to be productive. Second you have to make time to relax by yourself and with friends.

If you focus only on being productive, you'll wear yourself out, and if things don't turn around fairly soon, you'll lose energy and want to give up. So you need to have some downtime. If you have too much downtime, you'll miss out on possible jobs, and chances to improve your skills.

The productive part of your schedule doesn't just include making phone calls, sending out emails and looking at help wanted ad's, it also includes improving yourself. There are many free and low cost courses you can take online that will make you more marketable and expand your skills. So make sure to spend part of your day on finding ways to make yourself more desirable.

Planning Your Job Search Schedule

When are you most productive during the day?

The most productive time of the day should be when you make phone calls, prepare emails, and go outside to do some footwork while searching for a job. You want to plan this out carefully, because if you choose an hour or two when you're less productive, you'll spend more time staring at your computer screen or reviewing your cover letter for the tenth time than actually getting work done.

Then pick another period when still active, but not as productive to focus on studying some new subjects, taking an internet course, or possibly even taking part time classes at a local college or university.

For the less energetic parts of the day, put in time for relaxing. This can be whatever you want, from playing video games to meeting friends.

Personally I'd have it at about a 70-30 split between productive actions such as job hunting and improving your job skills, and relaxing. Depending on how desperate you are, you can change this around a little, but remember spending all your time job hunting without a break can burn you out. A burned out job hunter is pretty useless.

So plan a schedule and stick to it. The routine will help keep you grounded, motivated and moving forward.