As I work with coaching clients who are searching for jobs or launching freelance careers — or both — one of the hardest challenges they face is how to manage all of their newfound time. For example, a deadline-driven job was a great fit for one client with ADHD. She knew exactly how to structure her days and what to do when. It was fast-paced and fun while giving her enough flexibility to be creative.
When she was laid off, compounding her grief was a loss of direction. She struggled with how to spend her suddenly unstructured time and described days she couldn’t account for with little to show for her efforts. She had a folder full of unfinished cover letters, flagged postings she didn’t apply for and notes to LinkedIn connections she didn’t send.
If any of this sounds familiar, here are four things that I and several experts recommend to reclaim your time, your sense of control and to reconnect with your ability to get ish done.
Try a time audit
My first recommendation is an audit to document how you’re spending your time. For three days, including one weekend day, write down everything you do and for how long. Use 15- to 60-minute increments on your phone notes app or pen and paper. Time tracking software can help you with this (I like Toggl, which is free). When you begin a task, hit start and just remember to hit end again when you’re done.
The goal of the time audit isn’t to shame you into job application submission, it’s to gather data.
After clients finish the audit, I follow up with reflection questions:
- What did you learn?
- How can you put those learnings into action?
- Did anything surprise you?
- Did you find the tracking helpful? Why or why not?
Time audits have generally been illuminating for clients. Some realize they have been more productive than they’re giving themselves credit for; others have reallocated some of the hours they spent on Instagram daily to researching roles. It isn’t about eliminating things you enjoy, it’s about making sure the time you spend on them matches your goals.
Another potential benefit of a time audit is that the very act of tracking may make you use your time differently.
“If we start to track it, we automatically become more efficient,” said psychologist Michael Wiederman. “So it’s really hard to truly just track something without naturally improving it.”
Break it down
As you’re planning your days based on data from the audit, time management expert Laura Vanderkam recommends small, actionable steps to break down the monumental task of finding a new job.
“Everything on your to-do list should basically be a noun and a verb,” she said. “So ‘job search’ is not a to-do.” Asking a friend to look over a cover letter is.
Treating a job search like a job, with days that have distinct beginnings, middles and ends can also keep it from taking over your life.
“Something like a job search is amorphous, it can take any amount of time, and it can be very easy to either underestimate or overestimate how much time you are devoting to it,” Vanderkam said. “So people can fall into these stories they’re telling themselves, like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m not doing anything. This is terrible. I’m a bad person.’ Or it could be that, ‘Gosh, I’m spending 24 hours a day searching for a job, like, I have no time for anything else.’”
“Probably neither of those stories are actually true,” she said.
Task management, but make it adorable
If you benefit from a dopamine hit with your to-do list, several clients like Finch, a disarmingly cute digital “self-care pet” you dress, shelter and send on adventures by completing your daily to-do list.
Tracking the pet’s growth day to day has been particularly helpful for my client with ADHD, who struggled with maintaining habits and routines. She uses the app’s pre-loaded daily tasks and adds her own based on the habits she’s looking to build. Checking them off delivers a satisfying “brrrrrng!” and affirming messages like, “You’re a rockstar!”
Give yourself grace
Longtime freelancer and entrepreneurship educator Shernay Williams also advises that you give yourself time to “repair emotionally.”
“If someone has just experienced a layoff, or there’s a lot of emotion or anguish, sadness around their past job, I always recommend to just take a breather,” Williams said. “Of course, that’s a luxury, people need to make money. But even if it’s just a day or two.”
