Too Tired After Work to Think About a Career Change?
You put “look at other jobs” on the calendar for Thursday evening. Thursday arrives. You eat dinner, open your laptop, and read the same job description three times. You close it with the impression that every company is looking for the same unusually enthusiastic person.
Then you make a new appointment with yourself for next Thursday.
If you’re too tired after work to think about a career change, look at what you’re asking yourself to do in the time you have. An hour on the calendar can hold a simple task, a difficult conversation, or a decision with consequences for your household. Those make very different demands.
Find out where you lose the thread
“Think about my career” is a large assignment. It includes remembering what you’ve done, imagining what else you could do, comparing pay and conditions, and considering how a change might affect the people who rely on you.
Pick one recent evening when you meant to explore an option. What was the first thing you tried? At what point did you stop?
Perhaps you opened six job listings and could no longer remember what drew you to the first one. Perhaps you got as far as a salary range and realised you would need to understand the benefits before the figure meant anything. Perhaps you couldn’t face another screen.
Each observation suggests a different response. One evening might be better spent saving a single listing. A question about benefits can go on a short list for later. And some evenings are simply available for dinner and a quiet sit.
Give the task a size you can see
Turn “figure out what’s next” into one question you can answer from something close at hand.
Which activity in my current job would I want to do again in another setting?
What do two listings for the same role actually say about the work?
What would I want to ask someone who moved into that field?
Choose a question you can leave partly answered without losing your place. Give it somewhere to live, such as a note on your phone or a sheet of paper. Finish by writing the next thing you would look at. The next time you return, you can start there.
Try giving the same question a different time
Imagine a project lead who keeps trying to explore a move after a day of meetings. They start with a modest question. “Which parts of my current work would I like to keep?”
On Thursday evening, they come up with “something creative.” On Saturday, they spend fifteen minutes looking through their calendar. They remember how much they enjoyed making a rough sketch that helped a team understand a tangled project. They also remember how little they enjoyed spending the next three weeks chasing approvals for it.
Now they have something specific to investigate. They might look at roles that involve making complex work easier to understand and ask how much of the job is spent on coordination.
A Saturday morning may be spoken for by work, care, or the need to sleep. Try another time if one is available. See whether the change affects what you can give the question.
Include the week you actually live in
Choose one career question and record what happens on two occasions when you could give it attention. Write down the time, what the day had already asked of you, and what you managed to notice or do. “I opened the listing and saved one question” counts as an observation. So does “I used the time to rest.”
At the end of the week, ask what the record suggests. You might do better with a shorter task or a time with fewer interruptions. You might discover that your main uncertainty is practical and would be better answered by asking a person than by reading another page.
You may also see that the current week offers very little room for this work. Decide what can wait and what has a real deadline. A contract ending next month may call for a different response from an interest you want to explore over the year.
Leave yourself somewhere to begin
Finish with one line. “Next time I have some attention to give this, I will…”
“Ask Maya what she actually does in a typical week” gives you a place to begin. “Get serious about my future” will still be there next Thursday, looking just as impressive.
If you’d like more structure for exploring a career question in stages, The Next 10 Days offers ten guided steps you can work through at your own pace.
Developed by Thomi Sechehaye, with ChatGPT assisting in drafting and editing for clarity and readability.
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