The road to employment is filled with highs and lows -- and very mundane days in between. Amid networking on LinkedIn, writing cover letters and sending out job applications, life can get more than a little hectic. In the midst of job-hunting chaos, we can become so focused on finding our next paycheck that we can forget to take care of ourselves. Unfortunately, gaining new employment is a process, but these five tips will help you make the most of this time in your life.
Keep A Bedtime Routine
When you don't have to get up for work in the morning it is easy to not get out of bed at a decent hour at all. Although plenty of down time can be a perk during unemployment, you will be more productive and feel more motivated if you wake up around the start of business hours to get a jump on applying to jobs right away. The best way to get good sleep and get going in the morning is to maintain your normal bedtime routine. With a sleep schedule not only can you wake up normally, but you can also take some time to wind it down at night by completing your usual pre- bed time routine.
Schedule Your Life Like You Are Employed
If you keep up a 9 to 5 Monday-Friday schedule then you will have no trouble completing job applications. Since unemployment is stressful, you can feel tempted to keep yourself tethered to your computer all the time. However, if you schedule time to apply and interview during regular business hours then you can put up your computer at night with confidence, knowing you put in a hard days work.
Pursue A Social Life & New Activities
Just because you are searching for a job doesn't mean you can't have some fun! It is easy to let the job search overwhelm your life, but you don't want to let your friendships go to the wayside. Friends can motivate and cheer you on towards a new job. You can also take all your newfound free time and put it to good use. This means exploring who you are as a person by finding new hobbies and meeting new people. You can grow personally as well as professionally while job- hunting.
Set A Non-Work Personal Goal
This can be anything that gets you excited about life in the short and medium-term. Setting a personal goal can help you feel like you are improving and moving forward even if your interviews are not. You can choose to work on a new exercise plan, a new skill you've always wanted to learn, a home improvement project you've been putting off or to fulfill a lifelong dream that has nothing to do with work, like writing a novel.
Find Daily Inspiration
The place that you go to fill out job applications needs to be an inspirational workplace. You can get bored and distracted with Netflix easily if you stay at home all day applying to jobs. The best thing you can do is surround yourself with inspirational quotes on your laptop and go somewhere where you feel calm and at peace. You can even make a vision board that shows off your ideal future and know that, by searching for new jobs, you are heading towards that great future, application by application.