Going

The last two days have been extremely productive. I feel like each day I gain more momentum. I still haven't managed to create any free time at work, though. The more I get done there, the more I get to work on. That's okay. I'm not gonna complain anymore about my job. At least for now... . I know most of this blog consists of complaints and negativity. Occasionally, I start to go through and delete the old posts (the negative ones. But I always decide to keep them as reminders not to relapse into the funk that I spent so many years in.

Anyway, my main challenge is having to muster up enough energy to work on things when I get home from work. I get up early (5:30am) and work all day until around 4:30pm. I drink coffee all day, but I still get tired. I get about 7 hours of sleep a night, which is definitely enough, but it takes a can or two of beer to fall asleep. I tried drinking a 32oz Rockstar energy drink last week and I felt good for about an hour, but after that I just felt tired and pissed off.

I've done better this week than last week. Still, I think I can get more done and get things moving along faster. I've said before that I'm impatient. I get that from my mom. I want things to happen now. Not later. I want to move back to Indiana ASAP so I can be with my kids, shop at my favorite stores, and finish my B.S. in Computer Science.

On the other hand, things aren't horrible for me down here. Yes, I hate my job, that's a downside. However, there are some good things. My relationship with my kids is still great. We stay in contact by phone or email on almost a daily basis. My relationship with my dad is great. We talk on the phone every night. We never talked this much when I lived close by. In fact, I really feel like I've gotten to know him for the first time ever. We never really just talked like we do now. My house is nice and it's out in the country. The rent is cheap and the landlord stays out our hair. Paducah is okay, not as many racist rednecks like in Benton (and I have to sell office shit to these people!!!).

My mom, on the other hand, has called me about three times in the last six months. That's just how she is though. I can accept that. She's acted weird since all that stuff happened back in August. I don't know if she feels guilty or if she somehow blames me and/or L for what happened. I don't know how she could blame us, but people are strange like that.

Weekly Goals

I also decided to start keeping track of my weekly goals on here. While at work, I track my goals with phenomenal precision. I actually have two offices (accounting and sales) that I go back and forth to each day, so all of my paperwork resides in a 3 inch ring binder. Every Monday, I print Franklin Covey planning sheets to go in the very front of the binder. Each one is divided into two columns: Tasks and Appointments. In my 8 to 12 hours at work each day, I am able to keep up with most of what they throw at me.

But when I get home from work, I suffer from “planning burnout”. All I have to do is apply these concepts to my day outside of work. This is what I hope to accomplish this week:

• Finish my personal website and publish to the web
• Check top career sites daily and apply for all that I can
• Keep up on personal emails
• Finish current freelance articles due this week
• Box up most of my home office to be moved next time I'm in Indiana

Stepping Up Efforts

Yes, it happened again. Not as bad this time, but it still happened. I got caught up with everything and didn’t post all week. This reflects poor time management on my part. I’m not gonna beat myself up over it, but I can learn from my mistakes. I have turned each week into an opportunity for self observation.

What happened last week was poor planning. I planned it better than the week before but not well enough to accomplish everything on my list. The main problem was that I attempted to keep most of the planning in my head, rather than writing it down. I’ll change that variable this week and see what happens.

Last Friday, I felt extremely discouraged. I started to feel trapped down here. The feeling lasted all day Saturday as well, but this morning I felt better. I realized that my efforts so far have been at about 10% of what they could be. Part of the problem was that most of my life, I waited for fate to intervene every time I was in an adverse situation. If my parents had many business connections and frequently networked with the affluent, then I could just sit back and wait for opportunities to arise so that I could move back. I could relax, knowing that things would soon get better. I had to face the truth. My parents aren’t connected or affluent. They are exposed to even less information than I am. The only way I can sit back and wait is by setting up my own network and putting myself out there. Any exposure I get will improve my chances of finding the career that will get me back. This revolves around the flow of information. I woke this morning and wrote out a plan for getting back home to Indiana. I know it will work.


The Divided Approach:

I decided to divide my efforts in my career search. One part is to continue applying for jobs on the major career sites and from the list of companies that I would like to work for. The other part is to market myself by creating an online network focusing on my skills and talents. These will put me even closer to finding that job.

Time Management VI

This week will be the perfect opportunity to test out my time management skills. I get up at 5:45am, wake up for 45 min, take a shower, get dressed, and head to work. I have to be there by 7:30am. That consumes 9 hrs of my day. I have an unpaid hour for lunch (which I usually go home for and eat with L) and I'm out by 4:30pm. They expect me to stay (unpaid) until everything is done, but I don't anymore. I won't work for free. It takes ten minutes to get home, so that leaves about 5 hrs to get things done. Until just now when I typed it out, I didn't realize just how much time I have. I should have more accomplished than what I have. I'll see how things go this week.

I spend a significant amount of time playing video games. It relaxes me and provides the opportunity to step away from life for a while. I'm saving some of my best ones for when I am all moved back to Indiana. Then I can relax. Same goes for everything else that I enjoy. If I deprive myself of everything I love, things will move a lot faster.

Monday

The first day of the week. There isn't much time to get anything done in the morning. But wait! I sit and drink coffee for at least a half hour before showering. This is an excellent opportunity to check personal email and some quick web browsing. So there's about 30 minutes of time in the morning that I now have to accomplish tasks.

Things at work are typically busy on Mondays, so there's not much time at work to do anything. Besides, all internet activity there is closely monitored (can't have anyone working on their own business during work hours). What I can do is utilize my smoke breaks by getting some planning done while outside. So tomorrow I'll plan the evening during two fifteen minute breaks. Another half hour! So we're up to one hour of time before 4:30pm.

After work, things will be easier. I do spend a couple hours on the phone with my kids and my dad, but I can work on the career search and talk at the same time. Tomorrow is ready. My tasks are laid out in my planner so I can make the most of the day. I'll finish up Monday by planning Tuesday.

Job Hunting

Weeks have gone by in the blink of an eye. I haven't made much progress in the way of landing a career that will get me back home, but in my defense, I haven't had much time. This week should be better. I am seriously going to have to carefully manage my time. Since there isn't enough in the day, I need to manage time to the minute. Use every piece of the day to move closer to my goals.

The ironic thing is that I'm working so hard to get the life that I already had. I just want things to be the way they were (except for being broke all the time, that wasn't fun). I have so many wonderful memories. L and I had so much fun. I used to sit and complain about not being able to find a tolerable job, but now I realize that anything we want is within our grasp - we just have to be tenacious and creative enough to reach for it.

odesk.com

I found a pretty cool website called odesk.com. It's for independent contractors and clients to match up. This one isn't like any other I've seen before. It's a lot more stringent than Sologig. Not that there's anything wrong with Sologig, I actually never finished my profile there (I plan to tonight).

I found a substantial number of projects that I have professional expertise relating to.

Winter Storm

On January 27th, a winter storm hit the midwest, knocking out the power lines across Kentucky. We lost power at 1pm and it's still out. We found an old kerosene heater and it worked. We bought 2 gal of kerosene on Tuesday, before all the gas stations closed and people started getting desperate. We finally ran out on Thursday, and decided we were going home. The only problem we had was that we only had a little under 1/2 tank of gas to drive as far as we could. It was close. The power outages affected everything north, all the way up to Evansville.

We're back home in Indiana for now, but have to leave tomorrow. I have to be back at work on Wednesday. We're so close to moving back! I'm only going back to work to earn some extra money over the next few weeks. I'm coming up here for a job interview on the 11th, so going back there tomorrow isn't so bad. I know I'll be back home in Indiana soon. It's just now starting to sink in that I'm actually going to have to move all my stuff back here again. But that's okay, moving back is worth it. I learned from my mistake. A lot of good came out of the whole experience.

As soon as I get settled in, I'm going to make a difference here. I am proud to be from Indiana and I want to do my part to make it a better place. Words cannot express how relieved I am that it's almost over.