Small Business

Six Ways to Stay Productive When You're Unemployed

By Rick Broida

Updated on: July 14, 2008 / 12:00 PM EDT / MoneyWatch

Out of work? You're probably going a bit out of your mind. Whether you left on your own or found a pink-slip in your inbox, it can be really difficult to cope with your "job-transition" phase. Personal-development site Organize IT offers six tactics for keeping your sanity while you're unemployed, including:

Use the extra time productively It's a big change to go from struggling to fit what free time you have around a job to finding yourself with more time on your hands than you know what to do with. Regardless of whether you are unemployed for a few weeks or several months, all that free time isn't something you're going to get often -- so make make good use of it!
Don't fall into bad habits Regardless of whether you like your job or not, it sure gives your life a lot of structure. Without it, it can be tempting to stay in bed till lunchtime, lounge on the sofa, and just generally fall into bad habits. When that happens, it's a difficult hole to get yourself out of, one which will drain your motivation to look for work or make good use of your time.

The author also recommends adopting frugal habits, socializing as much as possible (networking, really), and applying for "anything and everything." To that advice I'd add this: Keep working. Volunteer your services, start (or finish) your own projects, and just plain keep yourself busy. If nothing else, you'll preserve your sanity, and you'll be able to tell a prospective employer all the great things you accomplished even while you weren't on someone's payroll. Pure gold! Photo by aperryz302.