How Many Tabs is Too Many Tabs? Time Management is KEY.
This afternoon, a Sunday afternoon, I find myself putzing around my computer since I am hopelessly addicted to it. Don't get me wrong - I LOVE the outdoors, I get away from this blasted machine as often as I can, but really, I enjoy everything it has to offer and everything it can do.
However, that combined with my new found Twitter addiction I find myself following a LOT of creative, inspirational, helpful people, and they all post such interesting and useful tools. The problem with this is I now have 39 tabs open up on my Firefox browser and can easily spend a few hours just bouncing from link to link. My first four tabs are Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Gmail. The next four tabs are various articles I've kept open for about a week but am determined to read. The middle bunch of tabs are job postings I intend to apply to that people have told me about, and the last few are all discussions from various LinkedIn groups that I would ideally like to post to. They do say job searching is a full time job in and of itself. This is true, but keeping up with it and managing your time well is extremely important to the search.
"They" recommend percentages for time: 20% on email, 20% on job board, 40% on networking, etc etc. I hate percentages. Everyone has their breakdown of how to manage their time and you have to do what works for you. If you're a professional this isn't new to you, but it is worth a good reminder especially now that social media has taken over your traditional job searching methods.
Give yourself a daily outline because technically, even though you're unemployed by a company, you are employed by yourself in a full time work at home job. Set your hours and your goals. It doesn't have to be 9-5 (if you're going to be unemployed, give yourself the one benefit of sleeping in a bit), but don't start at say, 2pm.
Don't spend more than an hour and a half reading about job searching, or articles, or tips. It all starts to blur together after awhile anyway, doesn't it?
DO spend an hour or so sending out emails for networking opportunities.
DO spend an hour or so replying to discussions in groups and getting yourself noticed in the internet world. And if you have the opportunity to get out to networking events put on for free in your area, by all means, do it.
Figure out the rest of your day after that. Guidelines are necessary. You wouldn't just come into a job without a game plan for your day, so why would you do that for your job searching?
And last but not least - Focus. I find this to be a tough one because I need background noise, but if you're giving yourself an hour to get something done, do it.
Good Luck! Happy time managing, and here's to x'ing out those tabs!
However, that combined with my new found Twitter addiction I find myself following a LOT of creative, inspirational, helpful people, and they all post such interesting and useful tools. The problem with this is I now have 39 tabs open up on my Firefox browser and can easily spend a few hours just bouncing from link to link. My first four tabs are Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Gmail. The next four tabs are various articles I've kept open for about a week but am determined to read. The middle bunch of tabs are job postings I intend to apply to that people have told me about, and the last few are all discussions from various LinkedIn groups that I would ideally like to post to. They do say job searching is a full time job in and of itself. This is true, but keeping up with it and managing your time well is extremely important to the search.
"They" recommend percentages for time: 20% on email, 20% on job board, 40% on networking, etc etc. I hate percentages. Everyone has their breakdown of how to manage their time and you have to do what works for you. If you're a professional this isn't new to you, but it is worth a good reminder especially now that social media has taken over your traditional job searching methods.
Give yourself a daily outline because technically, even though you're unemployed by a company, you are employed by yourself in a full time work at home job. Set your hours and your goals. It doesn't have to be 9-5 (if you're going to be unemployed, give yourself the one benefit of sleeping in a bit), but don't start at say, 2pm.
Don't spend more than an hour and a half reading about job searching, or articles, or tips. It all starts to blur together after awhile anyway, doesn't it?
DO spend an hour or so sending out emails for networking opportunities.
DO spend an hour or so replying to discussions in groups and getting yourself noticed in the internet world. And if you have the opportunity to get out to networking events put on for free in your area, by all means, do it.
Figure out the rest of your day after that. Guidelines are necessary. You wouldn't just come into a job without a game plan for your day, so why would you do that for your job searching?
And last but not least - Focus. I find this to be a tough one because I need background noise, but if you're giving yourself an hour to get something done, do it.
Good Luck! Happy time managing, and here's to x'ing out those tabs!