Advice

Unsure – or Overwhelmed?

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If you feel overwhelmed in your job search, pause for a moment and ask yourself this:

Are you overwhelmed with effort – or overwhelmed because you aren't sure what to do next?

I encounter this a lot – people are unsure of what to do next, so try everything, or randomly meander from task to task.  They never get anything done (or get comparatively little done), yet are completely exhausted.  Even if they don't spend endless hours on their careers, the lack of success and the attempt to do EVERYTHING overwhelms them.  They may even try less as they feel so overwhelmed.

So when you feel overwhelmed, take some time out and ask if you have definite measurable goals and directions – or are you trying to do everything at once without a plan.  The answer may be surprising.

I myself am guilty of this, and find that regularly reviewing what I really want to do and achieve helps – I have less chance of getting lost trying to do everything.  Even if I overload myself I at least know what my original intent was before I overdid it.

– Steven Savage

The Advantage of Household Technology

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One of my biggest advantages in my career was the fact that I got a home computer early in life.

That meant I could use job search sites back when they were just evolving, or send faxes over the modem.  It meant I could train myself on software and in coding whenever I wanted.  it let me build resumes and skills.

Now, years later (fifteen or sixteen to be precise), the home computer is nearly omnipresent, but one fact hasn't changed: the technology in your household can be a career advantage.

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In Praise of Stupid Fun

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I am all for using your hobbies professionally.  Indeed, I think the ideal life is one where your hobby and job don't exist – what you'd call "hobbies" and "jobs" are so fused you just have a "life" where the things you like make you money and give you social involvement.  To me the holy grail of professional geekdom is like that – a life with no outside (or inside).

A flaw that afflicts some progeeks, and that many don't speak to, is that it's too easy to slide into the idea that just because you're a fannish professional, just because what pays your bills also is the reason you have an extensive action figure collection, that you have to take everything seriously.  In short, every "fun" thing has to be calculated to some financial benefit.

I'm here to say that's wrong on two counts.

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