Restarting the Blog

I got a little lazy and haven't posted anything in over a month. This is partly due to significant travel and family commitments in recent weeks. But also, I think I hit a mini-wall. A few things:

1. I'm back now from my long trip(s), so now it's just me and my brainstorming sessions. Time to keep the ball rolling and stay productive.

2. I can see how easy it could be for me to just stay unemployed for a long time, like months or years. Two months just flew by. That's a little scary. I want to strike a good balance of staying methodical and deliberate with my job search but still making daily / weekly progress.

3. I think I'm putting too much pressure on myself to write something deep and thoughtful. I think I need to focus more on keeping the process going. I should try to post more frequently, even if it's a short posts, or even if it's short spurts of thoughts like this post. I need to stay focused on the goal here, which is to find a job, not write nice blog posts.

4. A friend who also went through a time of unemployment gave me good advice which I plan to take to heart. It's really easy to get stuck in the house - watch TV, take a nap, surf the web, etc. So, my plan is to go to the library every week day for several hours. The change in environment, hopefully, will be good for me. Hence, I'm writing this post from a public library.

5. I have a child and staying at home and taking care of a child is actually really tiring - it's mentally and physically challenging. I've only been alone with my child for 2-4 hours at a time so far, but soon, when my wife starts working, it'll be 8-10 hours at a time, maybe more. I'm developing a deeper respect for stay-at-home moms and dads. Our current plan is to put our child in daycare for 3 days a week starting in June, so that I have time to meet people, do interviews, etc. when that time comes.

6. I think one of the important next steps are to begin just talking to people and learning about what they do and how they got into it. I need to reach out to my network of friends and colleagues from school, church, previous jobs, family, friends, etc. One future activity is to create a list of people I want to talk to. Networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook should help here.

7. A friend forwarded me this HBS blog article:

To Find Happiness, Forget about Passion http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/01/to_find_happiness_forget_about.html

Given my last post, I thought it was a good reminder not to be too focused on being inward looking, but to look out into the world and consider the problems you want to solve in your life. I think that'll help as I brainstorm.

8. On a slightly related topic, I'm also hoping to get in better shape during my time off - exercising regularly. First, just for the pure physical benefit of being healthy, energized, and feeling good, but also for the mental / emotional benefit of keeping a routine, being disciplined, etc. I hope this will lead to me eating healthier as well. Again - contributing to me being disciplined and regimented.