Difficulties with work spring up at almost any moment; planning for such seems to only bring it on more heavily. I’ve had jobs end suddenly… without doing anything nefarious mind you. These were legitimate reasons, completely out of my hands. Along those same lines, opportunities appear just as sporadically. So for the first day, I’ve created a master resume, a set of working resumes, a master cover letter, and working cover letters.  This may sound daunting, but I promise it’ll make these occasions easier in the future.

Making a master resume is like investing in a giant column of granite.  You can cut it down, augment it, and otherwise chip it away to fit into any specific job’s specifications.

For the Uninitiated…

A master resume consists of everything you could possibly ever want (or need) to tell any employer in the future. This would include any job over the last ten years, your full gambit of education, awards, and really anything else that could go onto a resume. If you want more information on how to do this, a quick google search can do wonders!  But if you still have questions, leave a comment and I’ll definitely do what I can to help!

Why?

A master resume allows for me to have a viable document for jobs I’ll be applying for in NYC after May.  For instance, I have a Post Production resume, a House Sitting resume, a Film Projecting resume, and of course a Blogging resume.

How Exactly is this simplifying?

Simplicity in a sense can also refer to the ease at which transitions occur.  I’m attempting to cut down the transition time between jobs, plus cut down the stress inherent to such a time.  Plus, keeping a master resume, a few extra copies and cover letters on a thumbdrive would easily fit into a bag.

So chalk that up as the first item going in ‘my bag’ for this trip!

Lets say you now want to make an awesome resume.  There are millions of websites that could help; but for convienance I’ve listed a few of my own hints on how to make a totally-awesome-super-sweet resume.

•  Keep it simple, and down to a single page - as amazing as your career has been, handing someone a three page behemouth is not the way to go.
• Black and white with simple color highlights can do wonders!
• Use white paper… Like not beige, pink, red, off-white or anything else. This is of course unless you’re applying for an eco-warrior type job, then by all means use recycled paper. Otherwise 24lb white paper looks professional without pulling a ligament.
• Be honest.
• Don’t be shy. Your future employer wants to know exactly who you are.
• An objective can be the best moment to show your eloquence, education, and creativity… This is without saying anything about those things, just varying what you write without being passive.  Saying “To obtain a job with you where I can write for a living because I am a good writer” would make me yawn. “To attain a job with you wherein my exuberant writing ability may flourish.” <~ now that I like.

That’s all for today!  If you’re out there looking to hire a new blogger for your staff, please check out my resume! Or, you know - if you need a House Sitter in NYC…  Otherwise, let us move on to tomorrow!

As a self-proclaimed filmmaking-projecting-blogging-philosophizing-researching-designing-studying-politicizing writer and editor, I’ve began thinking it’d be a good idea to load more on my plate. Between work, play, exercise, maximized down-time and regulated sleep (alongside heavily regulated caffeine insurgence) I started to think it would be a wonderful idea to start a commercial blog, a personal blog, a ‘novel’ blog, and begin updating twitter regularly. This is of course on top of my already deep trodden (yet horrifyingly incomplete and disarrayed) myspace, facebook, linkedin, goodreads, and last.fm profiles. Writing this, I have twenty tabs in this firefox window, another with ten, thunderbird monitoring my five separate e-mail accounts, my IM client screaming any minute changes among my three screennames, Sunbird perched to remind me of my appointments, iTunes blaring the most random set of jpop-funk-rap-classical-jazz-grunge-punk, and my cell phone sitting pretty to my left just waiting for calls or maybe a few texts… I think it’s time to make a change.

Over the next one sixty days I’ll be putting forth, discussing, and instilling sixty moves towards simplifying my life.

Okay. So, while in the shower yesterday morning (listening to Anderson Cooper 360, creating a todo list, and deciding over my groceries of course!) I concluded that I may, possibly (but this is not definitive by any means) have a (slightly!) over-tasked life. I’m the type of person who reads and learns the ‘Getting Things Done’ system in an effort to add more to my behemoth of a schedule… So I’m going drastic.

Here’s the plan: My days will include suggesting an area needing change, then putting that suggestion into practice.

Why am I doing this?
Well, I need to cut, change, re-distribute, assign, and allocate the importance of everything in my life. I’m of the persuasion attempting such a feat is utterly impossible without the clarity of simplification. And besides, I’m moving to New York in sixty days. I can only bring two bags.

…My verbosity in blog posts attest to my need for simplification. We’ll address that later. Today, now… like right now marks the first day of my new journey towards simplification.