Some general advice

First of all, the job hunt comes first. Your job is to find a job. I know it's cliche, but it's cliche because it's true. I'm not going to cover the job hunt stuff much, but with all the IDP, NCARB and ARE stuff, as we work our way through it, it's vital to remember that the job hunt comes first, no matter what.

- Get out of the house. I can't emphasize that enough. Treat your day as if you were going to work. Shave, shower, wear clothes you wouldn't be embarrassed to be seen in and go out and do your work someplace other than home. Coffee shops and book stores are great, libraries are even better (nobody giving you a dirty look for nursing your $6 cup of coffee for 7 hours).

- Get organized and set a schedule. Have a plan for each day and stick to that plan just as you would to a planned workday. Don't get into a rut though, always look for new stuff.

- Diversify. If you spend 10 hours a day every day of the week job hunting you'll drive yourself nuts. The job hunt is priority #1, but don't burn yourself out on it or you'll end up miserable and pessimistic about ever finding a job.

- Examine your weaknesses and use this time to improve on them. I recently spoke with my old project manager and asked him for a post-employment performance review. I told him what areas I was already working on and asked for additional advice. His feedback was very positive and gave me a few ideas of things to work on.

- Set goals. Yes, Goal #1 is Get A Job!... but set other goals with firm deadlines and measures. i.e. Get LEED certified by November, take the ARE Site Planning exam on 11/3, etc. Meeting those goals will leave you with a sense of progress and acomplishment even if you don't manage to find a job in that period.

I have a schedule laid out for my week and a routine I follow. I have a list of sites and resources I go through each day for my job hunt. Once I've finished that, which usually take about 2-4 hours, depending on how many jobs are posted and which sites post them, I work on the couple independent design projects I have for a couple hours, then I move on to IDP programs, Revit training/exploration (which also works into the independent projects) and some smaller projects, such as this blog. If my day rolls along well, I may be going from 9 am to 7 or 8 pm or even later if I'm really caught up in what I'm doing. I never spend less than 8 hours in a day "working". Barring some sort of major disruption of course.