To regular long-time readers, it might seem like I'm repeating myself, but as I've said before, some things deserve to be said more than once, especially in the blogging world where old posts sometimes sink deep into the abyss.

This is important.

Aside from the steady paycheck, what is the main difference between life as an unemployed person and life with a job? Is it a lack of structure? No. Sometimes the structure of unemployed life can be stultifying. Structure is imposed on you by lack of funds and lack of anyplace to go. You sit around the house and, being a "creature of habit," develop a routine that might or might not involve productive activity.

The difference is not lack of structure. It is lack of mission. Even in the most boring jobs, you serve some purpose. You play some role. You lead or play for some team. You have day-to-day tasks directed to some larger goal. The structure imposed by a job is primarily utilitarian and methodist in nature: You get used to doing certain things at certain times. Certain things can only be done during business hours. Certain things need to be done in certain sequences. But it's all about the things that need to be done, and those things need to be done for a reason.

You see how that works?

OK, so how do you apply this epiphany of obviousness to surviving your own unemployment? What has been working for me lately in my transition from unemployed to self-employed is to wake up each day and affirm my mission.

As an employee, the company mission statement is just some BS that you're fed at orientation and again if you ever browse the employee handbook. If you have a competent up-line in your chain of command, you will be reminded periodically of more specific missions that will help you do your job effectively and function well in a team.

What I do, and what works for me, is to be my own employee handbook and my own competent up-line. I have a broad "company" mission -- what I do for the people who keep me alive, my clients -- and a specific daily, weekly, and/or monthly mission broken down into tasks to be performed and goals to be accomplished. It helps to write this down. You could think of it as a to-do list, but a to-do list without a sense of mission is... (insert your own metaphor -- I need to keep the train of thought rolling). At the top of your to-do list, write the mission that you hope to accomplish in big, bold letters.

So if your broad mission is to get a new job, that's great. Now give yourself a daily mission: "Talk to some human being, somewhere, with the authority to hire me." Now set goals, (e.g., "Call every company on my target list by Wednesday." Notice that the goal is not to get hired at this point, just to make the calls.) Once you've done that, you can set specific tasks that will help you accomplish your daily mission and goals. Your tasks in this case might look something like this:

1. Maintain a call log.
2. Go through last week's call log and follow up with prospects who didn't shut me down completely.
3. Adjust resume to fit this week's targets.
4. ... and so on

(As an aside, if you're looking for a job, get off the Internet and on the phone. One of the best ways to differentiate yourself is to take the initiative and talk to the person with whom you need to talk. Go ahead and be sneaky. One trick that I like [Thanks to Dan for this one.] is to say, "So-and-so said I should give you a call." It doesn't matter if they know who So-and-so is -- they will talk to you just in case So-and-so is an important person whom they have forgotten about. So go ahead and tell them Chuck Linart told you to call. It will be the truth. Pose as a customer or investor. Tell the gatekeeper that you are calling about the person's dental appointment. Whatever -- get your foot in the door. Have a self-effacing and light-hearted joke at the ready in case the person gives you a hard time about your un-orthodox methodology in reaching them. Anyway, get on the phone. The Internet can be a great place to get information but a horrible medium of two-way communication.)

Let's distil this to its essence:

1. Set a broad mission. (In my case, "Keep myself warm and fed."
2. Set specific missions. (In my case, "Help other businesses and people to prosper.")
3. Set specific goals. (These should be attainable and realistic.)
4. Outline the tasks that will get you there. (Many of these should be things that you sort of have to force yourself to do.)
5. Do the tasks. Your plan won't rock if you don't rock it.

Treat it like a job, and it will become a job.

Good luck!