Time is the most precious commodity in the world. Money can be earned and spent, but we can earn money, gain love, find enjoyment, or fulfill our purpose with time. And yet, we all have experienced the feeling of having too little time. I’ve felt it several times throughout my job search and feel it especially acutely right now as I am starting back into (contract) work.

I was reminded recently of 15five.com in a discussion with other engineering leaders. 15five was a tool I used at Indeed nearly every week over the seven years I was there. Planning each week’s goals and documenting my progress towards them (as well as larger quarterly projects) gave me a clear sense of progress. I haven’t been nearly as regular about documenting my progress or goals throughout the job search, and now fractional work. I have a growing feeling that I’m not delivering enough, that I’m not doing enough, and that the work world is passing me by. I want to bring back some of that rigor to my day and my weeks as we wrap up the end of the year.

Time to think about the numbers

660, 50%, 28% – LinkedIn employees, percent of Bandcamp employees, and percent of StackOverflow employees laid off in the last few days. Source, source, source

4,744 people laid off, as tracked on layoffs.fyi, to date in October, exceeding September, with still almost half the month to go. source

Time Sensitive Tip

For those who received Texas unemployment (other states may have similar processes,) as I understand it, they withheld your first week of unemployment payment, also known as a “waiting week.” Once you have received two times your weekly benefit and return to work or have exhausted your benefits, you can request the “waiting week” payment. So, if you benefits have run out or you have returned to work, take a look.

Time Management

There are countless articles on the internet about time management. The “Getting Things Done” (GTD) methodology has always been a favorite of mine, but the thing it never helped me manage was calendar creep. In the seven years I was with Indeed I had to declare calendar bankruptcy (4 min read, or: deleting or declining all recurring meetings and re-adding only those that were truly necessary) multiple times. Part of that was due to my increasing scope within the organization as my team grew from four to over 80, but part of it is the proliferation of calendars as the arbiter of our attention. I’m about to institute a no-meetings day for my own personal benefit. Thankfully I don’t really have many recurring meetings at this point to clean out.

Fun

If I can help with your search, please contact me. Please give me feedback on what you like or don’t care for in this newsletter, and I’ll adjust. For total transparency, I have no affiliation with any of the tools, companies, or resources I share. These are my impressions, not colored by any outside influences.