As part of a corporate restructuring, I find myself on the most half-hearted job search ever. My severance covers my salary for one year. I don’t want to find a job too soon. But the longer I am off, the busier I seem to be, and the less motivated I am to find a full-time position. I hear that it may take me the better part of the year to find a position that will pay me what I was earning, but I’m really having a hard time focusing on the search. In fact, I’m finding it difficult to focus on just about anything.
It could be the stress of ending a longtime career with one organization and all the friends and associates I had there. It could be the recent loss of a family member. It could be that the part time, temporary job I have of managing a small business is too distracting. I’ve finally got the time to deal with some minor health complaints, organize some closets, purge some household crap, tend to the garden, plan a church event.
I think maybe I don’t do well with unstructured time. I seemed to be far more efficient and focused when I was reporting to a 9-5 job yet was somehow still able to manage a house and family. Or maybe I just had a built-in excuse to NOT function well at home. I was too busy to cook dinner, weed a garden, fold the laundry. Now that I’ve lost my excuse, I’m still not finding the time to plan meals, weed or clean. I’ve tried to set goals for myself. Today my goal was to clean out the utility room – a truly awful job. Instead, in an effort to procrastinate, I find myself applying for jobs. (and blogging)
Being employed full time was never this stressful.