On the Way to Reentering Workforce – Time Management

A mother needs more hours in a day.

• Planning is the key to success.
  Plan your day by writing on a calendar or post-its on what milestones you would like to conquer during the week. Usually a week’s planning helps because if you can accomplish all of them you have time for some more or if not you can carefully plan out to complete during the weekend to keep to your schedule and be true to commit yourself to the schedule you planned.
• Always overestimate the time allocated in your schedule.
  Keep this time reserved in case you have some emergencies during the week – looking after a sick child or just urgent household chore that needs immediate attention. You will not feel too stressed if you cannot finish some tasks because you have those spare hours providing you the much needed comfort cushion.
• Itemize your tasks.
  If a task seems too big to be done in a day or few hours, try your best to itemize it or break it down and take it through a couple of days rather than just a long back breaking task to be completed in a short period of time. If you are wondering what a “task” might be for you in a day – it ranges from preparing a resume, to planning out your job search strategies to connecting with your friends and researching further education options, to name a few.
• Add extra hours to a day.
  Could you stretch yourself a little on the weekdays by getting up an hour earlier than you usually do or sleeping a little late to spend time in research and preparation?
• Delegate house chores and cleaning.
  Can you afford a professional house cleaning at least once a month during the time you are looking for jobs? It just gets one constant prick out of the head. Can that spring or autumn cleaning be postponed just another month? What are other small chores that waste your time?

Note: looking for a job is a full-time work, you have to plan ahead or you plan to fail in the job search and time management as well.