Bless your souls

[resonant]

What absolutely amazing imaginary friends I have! I'm bowled over by all the thoughtful, creative, and helpful responses to my choose a new career for me post. Thank you all.

(I'm still interested in suggestions, if anyone has them, and I welcome comments from strangers here as well as people I already know.)



Most expected response (also most votes): Library work.
Most unexpected (yet intriguing) response: Epidemiology.
Most interesting response: Urban planning, because this was my father's career when I was a kid.
Jobs I didn't even know existed: Patent searcher, lab manager, research administrator.

Next step: basic research to tell me what the jobs in each field are called, and what they consist of, and what the differences are between them, followed by lots and lots of individual requests for further information.

I often look with bafflement on my choice of journalism as a career, but one good thing I have to say about life as a newspaper reporter: Despite my introversion, I'm not a bit intimidated about calling/e-mailing a bunch of people who don't know me and asking them questions about their work.



If there's anything I can do for any of you along these lines, I'd be happy to do it.

Meanwhile, in return for your help, I'll give you the digest of some of the books I've been reading as part of this process.



Julie Morganstern, Time Management From The Inside Out.

Most helpful practical suggestion: First decide what's important to you (exercise? strengthening family relationships? getting promoted? having a beautiful house?) and then allocate your time accordingly.

Most striking insight: "It's my observation that the areas we spend the most time on are the areas where our goals are most clear."

(This explains why I can always manage to get the sheets changed every Saturday, while weeks can go by without my having done anything at all toward career change, even though, you know, which one is likely to have the greatest impact on my future happiness? But if the sheets need changing, the goal is: Put new sheets on bed. Wash and put away old sheets. Whereas the career-change thing looks like a big morass from which it's impossible to pick out a single action to take.)

Drawback: If you're really mired down in procrastination, then trying to organize your time is going to be like trying to neatly put away in the closet a bunch of clothes that don't fit. You don't need to organize four hours of playing Zuma. In that case, you want to read:

Neil Fiore, The Now Habit.

julad recommended this, and I happily pass on the rec. This is a self-help book about procrastination, but it's rooted in an optimistic, humanistic view of life that's very appealing. It asks: Do you believe that human beings are fundamentally filled with eager curiosity? Yes? OK, that includes you too.

He sees procrastination as self-protective, and the book has a lot of suggestions about other ways to identify what you fear and protect yourself from it.

Most striking insight (on perfectionism): "There is no level of human perfection that will put you above criticism and rejection."

Richard Bolles, What Color Is Your Parachute?

The first sections are all about job-hunting, and for years every time I picked up the book I thought, "This really isn't telling me much that's new."

If you're interested in finding a new career, skip those sections -- seriously, don't even read them; there's a good chance they'll either bore you or fill you with anxiety. Go directly to the section where you do exercises to identify your skills and interests. I particularly liked the exercise where you wrote seven little stories about times when you did something that was fun while you were doing it and a source of pride when you were done, because that turned up unexpected things about the skills I most enjoy using.

Of course, once you've got that list, you have to do more research. Namely, you have to talk to people you know and say, "OK, here's my list; where do you think that points me?" I'm seriously thinking about printing the list out on cardstock and keeping it in my wallet, ready to pull out any time I'm in a group of helpful people.

I'll probably still talk to the people I know in three dimensions, but I can't imagine they could be nearly as helpful as y'all -- I mean, you meet people through college and work, which means nearly everybody I know is in either journalism, programming, or graphic design. Whereas you folks, I'm discovering, have a really unexpected and fascinating variety of jobs and experiences, and can actually tell me things I don't already know.

Tip: Every year, an updated version comes out. That means that you can usually get a used copy of last year's version very cheap on Amazon.

Comments

[vickita.livejournal.com]

This explains why I can always manage to get the sheets changed every Saturday, while weeks can go by without my having done anything at all toward career change, even though, you know, which one is likely to have the greatest impact on my future happiness? But if the sheets need changing, the goal is: Put new sheets on bed. Wash and put away old sheets. Whereas the career-change thing looks like a big morass from which it's impossible to pick out a single action to take.

Heh. And I can easily spend every weekend working on photos and networking at music festivals and scripting on web development, but my sheets can go unchanged for weeks at a time. (Yes, I live alone.) The problem is that I can get as far as stripping the bed and getting the sheets into the wash, but there's a disconnect somewhere between the dryer and putting the sheets back on the bed. I'll blink and look up, and it's way the HELL past my bedtime, and the sheets are still in the laundry basket, and I'll end up sleeping on the bed with no sheets on it and...

I should probably stop revealing these appalling things about myself. *g* Suffice to say if I didn't have an entire candle shop in my living room and a shitload of skincare products in the bathroom, nobody would ever believe that a person with two XX chromosomes lived in my house.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Hee! I hate putting sheets back on the bed, too, but I make myself do it immediately, before I even put the old sheets in the washer. (You do have more than one set of sheets, right? Because otherwise life comes to an end in chaos and entropy, or else it makes more sense to just sleep on the same sheets until they don't bend any more.)

I timed it once. It takes me four minutes to put new sheets on our bed. Feels like a lot longer than that, though.

[swtalmnd]

I timed it once.

This is how I got myself doing the catbox more often -- it seems like this insanely time-consuming chore until I realized it takes less than two minutes in reality, including the washing of hands afterward.

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

Four minutes!? It feels like ETERNITY to me.

For the rest of my life, I'm going to tell myself, "resonant timed it, and it was only four minutes, so get to it!"

[archant.livejournal.com]

For "Jobs I didn't even know existed" - If you want to delve a little into patent searching, check out www.piug.org

"The International Society for Patent Information is a not-for-profit organization for individuals having a professional, scientific or technical interest in patent information."

[panisdead.livejournal.com]

akdjfakdjfasdj thank you for the book recs with the specific breakdown of why one might want to read them, and when they might not apply to you. I am totally the person who would read the first three chapters of a self-help book, freak out because the material doesn't yet apply to me, and never pick it back up.

[old-enough.livejournal.com]

I've thanked you before for posting that topic,but just to give you an update... I'm deep into researching "Information Architecture". It's looking really positive so far.

And thanks again to all of you that answered Resonant's original post. You helped me out tremendously with more or less the same problem. :)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I know! Wiping down the bathroom takes less than sixty seconds, but every morning I still go, "I don't have tiiiiiime!"

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

It's amazing, isn't it? One of the things I did while I was reading the Morganstern book was time lots of things, and there were so many surprises.

Pay bills: 25 minutes. (I'd been telling myself, "What's your problem? It's a five-minute job." And my cupboard is very organized, so this is not a matter of having to spend half an hour trying to find stamps, either.)

"Catch up on LJ and the comics": 90 minutes. (So much for "I'll just pop online for a minute.")

Wipe down bathroom sink and toilet with a cleaning wipe: Fifty seconds. Srsly.

Wash lunch dishes: Two and a half minutes.

Sweep kitchen floor: Sixty seconds.

Fold and put away a load of laundry: Twelve minutes if it's mostly other people's clothes (because I just give them a pile of clothes and let them deal with them); fifteen to seventeen if it's mostly my clothes and/or kitchen laundry (which I put in the drawers myself).

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I've made a note of it.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm so glad -- I was really hoping this would help someone else save some time.

I've read (bits of) Parachute so many times, and I always got to the skills and interests section and said, "Oh, I don't need to do that; I already know what my transferrable skills are: writing and editing." Well, it turns out that those are down, like, numbers 9 and 10 in the list of skills I enjoy using.

I've come to the conclusion that writing is like driving a car, for me; I feel good about my skill at it, I can do it easily, sometimes I do it just for fun, but in and of itself (independent of the intention to, like, go someplace fun), it's just not all that interesting. I have to have the addition of creation/invention, or research, or analysis/synthesis, to make it really satisfying.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

This is cool! I mean, an online community is an enormous collection of brains and imaginations, isn't it? Why shouldn't we use them to help each other out?

[indywind]

Thanks for the recs and big big sympathies for finding what you want to do when you "grow up". I did that starting 2 years ago, arrived provisionally at "teacher" (subset humanities, for young adults)... spent the time and money on the training and could not get an appropriate job in my state. Fortunately my boss at my "temporary" job appreciated my skills so much that he arranged a competitive offer for an administrative position which, actually, does not suck too much... and allows me free time to teach on a volunteer basis and take classes for a graduate degree so I could lecture at a community college; whereas teaching k-12 for pay would not have supported such flexibility

The moral I take from this is, better to try something and see where it goes. Even if it doesn't work out like the ideal, it may point you in a useful direction.

[zebra363.livejournal.com]

I didn't have any suggestions to offer to your previous post, but found it interesting reading and a great idea! I have What Color is Your Parachute and worked through it a few years ago, but didn't really find it got me thinking outside the box. Asking for input like this is a good way to get out of that box!