Welcome to the first official day of unemployment. Contrary to popular belief, I did not sleep until noon and then watch daytime TV. I got up with my wife, played with the dog, and tried to accomplish a few things. I did get a few things done, but the random chaos and lack of structure is really throwing me for a loop. I miss break time.

It doesn’t help that I’m now puppy-sitting. We’re potty-training Speak, so you really have to watch him all the time. It makes concentrating on any one task nearly impossible. Tomorrow I think I’ll make better use of his crate.

I also miss riding the bus. It was a nice to begin and end my day with half an hour of uninterrupted reading. The walk home was a nice way to clear my head as well. I’m going to have to find a way to structure that time back into my day.

So after one day unemployment has been a struggle. It’s probably too early to judge, but I think I need a little more discipline and a lot more structure. It probably doesn’t help that the last month and a half of work was a total slack-fest.

While reading The Road to Daybreak today I came across a passage where Henri Nouwen reflects on the pruning of the vine. It made me wonder if my life could use a bit of pruning. Too much of my time is taken up with all of these distracting little hobbies I like to invest in. Designing senseless websites, trying to find cool ways to show off pictures of my house, wanting to make t-shirts for no apparent reason, wanting to find a new way to sell photos online, wanting to do new things with ReAL–all this junk that really isn’t important, I just want to futz around with it. The idea of pruning is that you become more productive when you cut back the lesser things and concentrate on the important things. I could use a little practice at that.

We’ll see what tomorrow brings.