What One Does With Her Time

When I'm speaking with prospective employers the number one question that I am asked, since I'm the one who discontinued my employment with my last company, is "What have you been doing since you left Grainger?"

This break has been a monumental opportunity to assess what I could have done differently with my past opportunities, how I can learn from them, and what I want to do next. My activities have focused mainly on that last point--I wanted to put into practice skills that would benefit my next employer and that would contribute to my own job satisfaction. Based on that reasoning, here's what I've been doing:

• Volunteering - Through this aspect keeping a continuum with my love of community involvement
• Writing - I write four blogs a week, and write short stories of an average of a rough draft finished once every two weeks. My foremost passion is communications, and my favorite aspect of this passion is written communication--opening me up to all kinds of virtual and networking possibilities
• Leadership - Three nights a week I lead a writing group in various parts of San Francisco. This is also on a volunteer basis, but allows me to flex my coaching, leadership, and teaching muscles

These activities, along with daily approaches to job searches, have filled my days and allowed me to experience more of contract/consulting nature of employment. They've allowed me to constantly learn and continuously learn change.