Joblessness forces a new routine

Another Monday, another week without a job. This week marks the midpoint of my three months of severance pay and an increased urgency to my job hunting — a frustrating task thus far.

Every job I've held has had its own routine. Even in the newspaper business, which offers fresh and often unexpected events every day, my job followed a routine, and I became a creature of habit. On each day, I knew what I needed to do to get through the day and to be prepared for the next day or the coming week. At The Wilson Daily Times, where (my elder daughter recently pointed out) I spent nearly half of my entire life, I knew I had to write an editorial every day, plus an extra one on Wednesday, and I needed to get started on a column at least by Tuesday, and I had to devote nearly every second of the morning to getting that day's paper out. Advance work and optional tasks had to be relegated to the afternoon. The daily deadline gave the workday a real sense of urgency.

My routine is much changed, but my life in unemployment has taken on a new routine and a kind of discipline not much different from that needed to produce a daily newspaper. I now divide every day into segments devoted to work around the house (cleaning, painting, yard work, etc.), job hunting, blogging (like this) and personal writing. I am beginning to understand retirees who have told me that they are busier than ever in retirement. My new routine has offered few opportunities for reading the stacks of books I've wanted to dive into, and I've spent no time watching movies or daytime TV.

This routine, it is hoped, will be only a temporary diversion. In my new career, whatever it might be, I will develop a new routine. I don't know what it will be, but I know that this new routine will guide my days and wash away the languid routine of watching the way the early morning sun plays upon the yard and the rooms of this house. Developing this new routine will be stressful — any job change (I've just experienced one) is stressful, and the stress remains until the new routine becomes habit. That's when the new job is no longer "new."