Jobs Are Temporary - How To Use Them

Do you really want a job? What for? The paycheck? Maybe you enjoy the work itself (if you're one of the lucky few), but does that mean you need to have a boss? Fortunately no. There are many ways to both do things that you enjoy doing and make money from your work. And although they can help you get to your goals, jobs are temporary, so why not see them that way?

Don't start that job search until you consider what's actually important to you. You can then look at your employment options as the means to accomplish goals that have real meaning. As long as the process is approached in this way, jobs do have their advantages. The following are some ways to use a job in this way.

1. Jobs Buy Time

It's common to claim we don't have time - even for the people we care about, but this isn't true. No one else is deciding how you spend what time you have. If you really want to spend more time with loved ones or writing that novel, just stop using your job to buy nice clothes or new cars and use it to buy time instead. For starters (until you really learn how to use both time and money more creatively) set aside enough of that paycheck to take off a week and spend it how you want.

2. Jobs Create Money To Save For Goals

A job creates income, and some of that can be diverted into savings for future plans and goals. I personally used a good job to pay off my first home early. Then I quit the job. That bought me a lot of time to do the things I wanted to. Several of my past jobs were devoted to earning money for traveling. Your job can provide money to start a business or buy a cabin in the mountains.

3. Jobs Provide Business Training

It's common to think of a job as an end in itself, or a means to a better job sometime in the future. That's okay if you really love being an employee, but in many fields you can use a job as training for owning a business of your own. In businesses like carpet cleaning and restaurant management this is common. Learn the business from the inside, then start your own company with the training and education you got.

4. Jobs Let You Live In A Place

Suppose you want to be where the best skiing is, but can't afford more than a weekend there every year? What do you do? Why not get a job there? Ask a few bartenders and other employees in Aspen, Colorado how they moved there. You'll find that many came not for the job, but for the skiing opportunities - and the job was just the means to that end. Get a job in the Florida Keys if you want more time at the beach, or in another country if you want to learn a new language and culture.

5. Jobs Teach You Skills

Many jobs are good places to learn skills that will be useful to you later. Some join the military for this reason. You don't have to go to that extreme, but if, for example, you work as a tax preparer for one season, you could apply the knowledge and skills learned to all of your future business activities. Being a car salesman for a year might prepare you with the sales and negotiating skills to become a great real estate investor or business tycoon.

6. Jobs Pay The Bills

Although not an exciting use for a job, this is sometimes necessary. But unless you really love the job you get, make this temporary. Here's how: Keep in mind that whatever job you get, if you got one that paid a little less you still would have survived. that means you're making more than enough to save a bit and plan something else. Pay those bills then, but also put a little bit of every paycheck aside and start looking for ways to pursue more interesting goals. You can at least continue your job search after you are hired, until you take one more step up in income, and then save even more for what matters to you.

Use that job as the tool or temporary stepping stone that it is!