Tomorrow Is my Last Day at Work
I’m taking time after redundancy to work full-time on myself
Tomorrow is the final day with my current employer, after a lengthy six-month period which involved retraining new staff and meeting targets. I will get compensated for this due to the unique circumstances of the redundancy, but it’s a very weird feeling. The redundancies were not to do with the performance of employees or even the company… there was cheaper labour and infrastructure elsewhere. If I’m honest, I’m a little burned out, so I’m quite glad that there is a job market lull before Christmas. I have time to actually rest!
As someone who hates not earning, this is weird for me. I realize that this is a huge opportunity to build something! It’s an opportunity to be creative, work on things like fitness, reevaluate my budget, finish creative/side hustle projects, volunteer, and learn new skills. I will also be able to spend more time researching and applying for new roles. I’m quite excited to have this time! Plus, I am in a position where I can take a little time out.
The Plan so far…
Firstly, I am going to need to get into some sort of routine that allows me to work on all the things that I want to include in the time that I’m taking for self-development. I have decided that I want to work on these core areas…
Health and fitness — I’m lucky that one of my main hobbies is a fitness hobby. I spin circus props like hula-hoops and dragon staff. Working full-time in an office, while working in stressful conditions such as a prolonged redundancy situation, has reduced the time I’ve dedicated to this. As a result of this and a sedentary job, I feel the most unfit that I’ve ever felt! Making time for my fitness hobby will help me to distress and work on fitness.
Creativity — While circus can count as creativity, I also enjoy writing and digital drawing. It’s important to be able to do these things.
Monetisation — In ways I feel I can maybe monetise some of my hobbies such as drawing and writing. Before I took the job that I’m leaving I ran an eBay store. Re-opening this using the old stock I kept is one way that I could build a side income as well that involves less time commitment to gain some sales. I also would like to write more on my blog welovehobbies.com and for medium.
I am interested in creating a webcomic with an environmental message and have some ideas on what I might like to draw for this. I want to take the Christmas period off first.
I’m interested in learning how to use Flipboard to curate all of these projects in one place because of some recent small success I had when this article was shared on the platform (it got 6 shares on Flipboard after it was shared through the Illumination publication and most of it’s audience currently comes from Flipboard)…
On top of this if all else fails I know I can gain some shift work when I need to through apps and agencies. Monetising my hobbies is more to build a side income for when I return to work as I’m aware that doing this isn’t a quick process. I can put the effort in while I have all this time to give it a jump start.
Education and volunteer work and careers — my education is in the environment. I am looking into opportunities to volunteer and go back into using these skills. I am also aware of some free University boot camps available to learn data analysis. I will also apply for roles daily and when I have an interview to prepare for I can really focus on researching the company and role.
Working full-time for myself
By implementing these ideas into my plan for redundancy I hope to make use of that time. I am seeing it as working full-time on myself. If you want to see what projects I come up with don’t forget to follow and subscribe.