Staying Organized with a Success Timeline

Getting organized requires that you create a Success Timeline, maintain a Calendar and keep a Daily To Do List.

These are your control devices. They allow you to organize your time so that you can get done what you need to do to achieve your goals. There are plenty of time robbers in everyone’s life. Most people feel that someone else controls their time. Demanding professors, spouses, parents, friends, and children, to name a few, control your life. Many job seekers find that they fritter away their time and then wonder why they have not yet gotten a job.

The reality is that it takes between 3 and 6 months to get a job in just about any labor market- good or bad. If you are not doing the right things or if you are disorganized you will be sabotaging your efforts.

Your Success Timeline is the larger view of what you plan to accomplish and when. There are a lot of steps involved in finding a great job, and as you progress through the tasks and assignments in this book, your activity Timeline will develop and change. It will become more focused and detailed as you learn more about what you need to do.

Fasten your seat belt. There are a lot of things you will be doing as we progress!

Look at a sample Success Timeline. This template is a starting point for developing your own Success Timeline. 

As your career search progresses, you will want to come back and modify your timeline so that you can keep focused on the big picture, beyond your daily to do list. It will be especially important to come back and edit your Success Timeline after you finish the Goal Setting section of the self-assessment process.