The 9-Hour Hole Nobody Warns You About After a Layoff
Losing a job leaves a big hole in your day. Before, there was a pattern: nine or ten hours of work, a few hours for yourself, and sleep. After a layoff, filling those nine or ten hours becomes a challenge of its own.
The first few weeks are fine. There's a lot to do: updating and sending your resume, applying for jobs, sorting out finances, helping at home, catching up on OTT. Then things slow down. Your resume has nothing new to add, you've applied to most of the openings, the finances are sorted, and you're bored of streaming. That's when the empty hours hit.
Where the mind goes
With that much free time, it's easy to drift into a negative place. You start doubting yourself, losing confidence and interest, and getting irritable. For men in particular, the expectation of being the earner adds pressure, and worries about school fees and rising expenses can push people toward despair or bad habits.
The other trap is over-helping at home. Every errand gets done right away, every chore, every school-bus pickup. You stay busy all day but never work on yourself, often because you don't know what you'd do with the free time. There were many days I just stared at my laptop, wanting to do something useful and not knowing what.
The schedule that worked for me
What helped was a fixed daily schedule. I split my day into five parts: family, job search and networking, health, building income, and upskilling.
| Time | What I do |
|---|---|
| 6:30–10:00 | Morning routine, house chores, getting the kids to the school bus, an hour of exercise, breakfast |
| 10:00–13:00 | Work on income: planning, researching, shooting and editing videos, writing, pitching training sessions |
| 13:00–14:00 | Lunch |
| 14:00–16:00 | More income work |
| 16:00–18:00 | Homework and play with the kids, groceries and errands |
| 18:00–19:00 | Searching and applying for jobs |
| 19:00–19:30 | Networking: calls with friends and ex-colleagues, so I stay on their mind |
| 19:30–22:00 | Dinner, a 30-minute walk, time with the kids, bedtime |
| 22:00–23:00 | Upskilling: courses and certifications for the roles I want |
| 23:00–23:30 | Unwind: music, a book, a show |
With this, I always knew what the next few hours were for, and I could balance work and family better. Your schedule will look different. The point is to have one.
The short version
- Make a daily schedule and stick to it
- Exercise for at least an hour a day and sleep at least seven hours
- Split your time between job search, upskilling and building income
- Keep time for your family and kids