A lot of people are out of work, yet ­apparently they aren’t all pounding the pavement for a new job, said G.L. Holman in U.S. News & World Report. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the average unemployed person spends a mere 18 minutes a day looking for a job. “Is it laziness?” Not necessarily. It’s more likely that these job seekers don’t know how they should be spending their time, or that, after a fruitless search, they’ve simply given up.

If you’re short on motivation and big on procrastination, consider some new “strategies” to get your search in gear, said Alexandra Levit in The Wall Street Journal. “Create a calendar of job-search-related tasks that you will do each day, and concentrate on checking as many of them off the list as you can.” If you’re tempted to cozy up with a good book instead, remind yourself that finding a job should be treated like a job. Still not motivated? “Start with the least complicated part of a particular task.” Once you accomplish a simple chore, it will be easier to move onto the next, more complicated one.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up