unemployment week 23

the month of may is the sixth month of my unemployment. from the beginning, i have told myself that i was going about it all wrong. every day i promise myself that tomorrow i will wake up at a respectable hour, treat the day like a work day, sit at my desk or a coffee shop or library all day, take a break for lunch, and then back to the grind. there is plenty for me to do all day, even if a lot of it is just hypothetical. i can stay busy, if i concentrate and work on it.

last night, i promised myself that this week i would start a new regimen. five months of sleeping in and sitting on the couch while i apply to jobs has resulted in nothing, so i have to make some sort of change. i set my alarm for 7:30. when i worked at my last job, i had no problem getting out of bed, no matter how little sleep i had the night before. i wanted to be there, and it wasn't a chore to wake up and go. i forgot what it feels like to wake up when you don't want to do anything all day. i hit the snooze for an hour. then i shut off the alarm completely and went back to sleep until 10.

my problem is not so much lack of self-motivation but lack of motivation to create tasks for myself and then complete them. its easy to motivate myself when there is a goal or when there is something to complete laid out before me. perhaps i should make up a schedule for myself the night before, then i would have something to follow during the day.

since becoming unemployed and taking on the challenge of attempting to build a freelance career, i have met many people who work nonstop and juggle many different projects and jobs at once. i wonder how they can do it all because sometimes i think there aren't enough hours in the day, and i don't have a full time job! these people -- whether they are writing pitches, articles or even books -- can spend every free moment sitting at their computer doing just that. i once read a blog of a freelancer who said she had trouble tearing herself away from her work simply to eat or sleep.

i can get immersed in my work as easily as the next reporter, but its getting to that work that has been the problem. the few freelance assignments i have managed to land have only come to me through intense begging, endless pitching and relentless follow up. it hasn't been easy. but once i got the assignments, they were fairly painless to complete. in fact, the hardest part of freelancing comes before you even land a gig, and ultimately i don't think i'm paid enough for all the effort i put in.

ideally, i would love to create a relationship with an editor who would rely on me for story ideas as well as quick turnaround on ideas they come up with. maybe in this economy that is a lot to ask. i just thought it would be easier to find than full time work.

it seems that no matter how much work i have to do or not do, i am always, endlessly complaining that there just aren't enough hours in the day. if only i could get out of bed at 7:30.