How to Kill a Day

When you don't have a job, girlfriend, or much money to spend, your calendar is usually pretty open. It's hard to understand if you're a busy or productive person, but finding enough things to occupy your time can be tougher than you'd think. Making one day different from the next is even harder.

I guess if you have a hobby it's different. If you don't, your day may look a bit like mine.

Wake up: 10:30am-1:00pm. This can vary due to the previous night's activities, which most likely includes droning out to HBO on Demand and hours of pointless web surfing. It's hard to go to bed early when you have nothing to do in the morning. At this time, it's important to make a plan for your day. Never happens as planned. Also a great time to look for a job.

Lunch: 1:00-3:00. Unless your European, there's no excuse to take more than an hour for lunch. This is a great way to burn time though. Lunch is a welcome break for working folk. It gives them nourishment, clears the mind for the rest of the work day, and gives you energy. For the jobless, it's a time for self reflection and a way to push the hour hand a little further. Oh, and it's also a great way to spend money you don't have. When your income is 0, spending $12 on lunch is pretty dumb, but easy to do. PS: You still haven't looked for a job yet.

Afternoon: 3:00-?. By this time, you should have been looking for a job for a few hours. Chances are, you haven't. Maybe a few checks of craigslist in between e-mails. Maybe you actually went out and hit the pavement. To be fair, it's hard to actively look for jobs after a few days worth of rejection. It pays to be persistant, but it's hard to stay consistant.

Evening: This can vary depending on how you spend your afternoon. Your job search is over (hopefully) and you now need something to do. When you're unemployed, evenings can drive you crazy. You feel like you should be doing something fun. At the same time you feel a little guilty for possibly wasting your day. This is also when you start planning your next day, and promising yourself that it'll be more productive than the last. Have a beer, watch a ballgame. Working people are doing the same thing.

Night: Depends on when your evening ends. It's an uncomfortable mix on ancy boredom and placid ponderment. Almost impossible to go to bed at a sensible hour. Save dinner, you've really got nothing to do but watch tv, read, send impatient text messages, and swear you're going to wake up bright and early tomorrow and get a job. If you have On Demand, you've probably seen every program on it. You've also probably spent too much time on myspace, facebook, and you've read every link on google news so you can tell people you stay current. Busy people have this sort of thing as a treat, a distraction. You've been online for so long that you feel like you've actually exhausted the resources of the internet.

Hey, if you can't figure out any other ways to kill your unemployed time, write a blog. I just killed my morning. Time for a European lunch.