Financial planners tell me budgets don’t often bust with the largest of expenses but a series of small cuts into the budget. Have I seen the devastation of job loss? Yes. We work with people in career transition who are working, doing consulting and those who are recently separated due to downsizing or firing (or any other euphemism you want to use). So we see this loss and crisis situation the provide some planning, resources and specific ideas to help move people through it quicker and more effectively. But let’s go over the little distractions of the day that tend to create havoc for most people as they attempt to become productive.
At times of great need often people possess little discipline over their savings, their daily expenses, their so-called needs and their vices. Do you really need the newest model car? How important is it to save a buck at the super market? It really does add up but cutting coupons never created wealth unless you career revolves around teaching others to cut back and create a coupon cutting lifestyle. Perhaps you can use the prosperous lessons in teachings made popular by financial populists like Suze Orman, Clark Howard, and Dave Ramsay to just name a few. I want to let these folks do what they do and the one on one financial advisers provide the specific advice needed. Where would I like to go? I want to focus on the daily distractions or interruptions that destroy the productivity of people in career transition who are career searching basically full time.
Consider reducing or eliminating these interruptions:
Email Responses and Newsletters
Do you really need to respond to every email? You do not. Turn off email notifications. Remove yourself from unneeded newsletters and bookmark the pages to find those newsletters in archives. Prioritize your email responses with some kind of system. Do not respond emotionally to any email.
Cut the Cord
Most people feel they must answer every text, every voice mail and every electronic interruption. You simply do not need to provide wasteful, non goal focused updates on Facebook unless your strategy is absolutely central to your networking and search. I find that my clients “invest” minutes a day and hours really on devices that are not central to the search. It’s tough but allowing those little debates online or a seemingly important text distract you can take you out of your game, the game of search. Clients of mine work hard to create a schedule to network.
Teach Your Family
I polled my most active clients in the last month about distractions in their search and here are the top three time wasters other than media, telecom/cell phones and the Internet: Family Situations, Lack of Respect for Schedule by Friends and Family, Poor Priorities. Many clients who have parents that are older deal with health issues and more. Several clients of mine are managing a household with some health situations by their aging parents. It’s not written about a lot but it is a big distraction.
Other clients complained that friends and family don’t understand or appreciate the work that goes into the search. Many career searches require a full schedule that includes individual training for interviews, planning, research, focused networking, editing of professional documents and emails, creation of new content and specific marketing of one’s brand on Linked In and elsewhere. This kind of work takes time and part of the work of search needs to be in coaching and teaching your family that job search can look fruitless but has value.
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