Starting Over
Jul. 25th, 2011 12:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quotidianAs of today, I am unemployed. It's a weird feeling, but not altogether a bad one. I was planning on leaving soon anyway, so financially this is actually a pretty sweet deal for me. Not only am I now eligible for EI, but I'm also going to be getting a hefty severance package to float me along for the next few months. So, no complaints here.
Still, being laid off is a pretty emotional experience. It's a huge, life-altering change, and it happens unbelievably fast. One minute, you're working away at your many projects, a valued employee with a clearly defined purpose, and then suddenly you're... not. It's hard not to be a little bit shaken, no matter how welcome the change.
Anyhow, the big challenge for me over the next while will be staying productive and engaged, as I don't always deal well with having gobs of unstructured time and no guidance whatsoever. However, at least I know myself well enough to know that that will be a challenge, and that means I should be able to find ways to compensate for said marked propensity towards procrastination and sloth.
To that end, I've drawn up a list of rules I mean to follow:
If I can just stick to those rules, I think I'll do all right. At the very least, I shouldn't have to worry about not having enough to do!
Still, being laid off is a pretty emotional experience. It's a huge, life-altering change, and it happens unbelievably fast. One minute, you're working away at your many projects, a valued employee with a clearly defined purpose, and then suddenly you're... not. It's hard not to be a little bit shaken, no matter how welcome the change.
Anyhow, the big challenge for me over the next while will be staying productive and engaged, as I don't always deal well with having gobs of unstructured time and no guidance whatsoever. However, at least I know myself well enough to know that that will be a challenge, and that means I should be able to find ways to compensate for said marked propensity towards procrastination and sloth.
To that end, I've drawn up a list of rules I mean to follow:
- Don't let inertia take hold! This mostly means that I've got to strictly limit the amount of time I devote to passive entertainment. In particular, I've got to keep my internet use under control.
- Focus on goals. I want to go back to university to study HCI, so now would be a great time to make sure my intellectual foundations are solid. In practice, that will probably mean reading a lot of books/papers on HCI, working through free online course materials, and learning some C#.
- Stay social. Without social interaction I will eventually go crazy. Staying social will likely require me to start organizing social events (eep!), joining volunteer organizations, and maybe devoting more time to keeping up with my correspondence.
- Become a habit judo master. Good habits will hopefully provide me with much-needed structure.
- Keep my apartment spotless. At this point, there's really no excuse for not keeping my apartment in a magazine-ready state of cleanliness.
- Get ridiculously fit. Again, it's not like I'm not going to be too busy exercise or eat right.
- Control costs. At the moment, I'm far from being in dire financial straits. However, with no new money coming in for... I don't know how long, it would probably be a good idea for me to start living like a penny-pinching grad student ASAP.
- Pursue neglected personal projects. All that writing and drawing and programming I said I'd get around to as soon as I had the time and energy? Now I have the time and energy.
If I can just stick to those rules, I think I'll do all right. At the very least, I shouldn't have to worry about not having enough to do!
