Part Time Work and Time Off?

Due to my mental health being poor from moderate anxiety and depression, I am unable to hold down a full time job at the moment. So I am only looking for part-time, online positions just to pay my expensive premium. However, as one of the best therapies for me is regularly seeing friends out of town, I am afraid of losing any social life I’ve worked hard to rebuild post-vaccination even if I do get less than full-time work. I also need to make time during the week for counseling appointments.

How flexible is part-time or online work with getting time off? How demanding is it compared to full-time? I’m thinking about going into the GIS field.

I don't know much about part-time work except that once during a depression I had to work part-time to survive because full-time work was impossible.

I had been in advertising before and went to work in a public library shelving books. It was a huge cut in pay for me but a blessing is disguise because it helped me get back on my feet again, so to speak. Libraries are quiet places and shelving books was kind of relaxing and unstressful. Luckily I was able to sort of choose my schedule so I could do things I liked if I needed time off.

I am sorry to say that I do not know what the GIS field is. Is that online work?

I work part time and have manipulated my schedule around my mental health appts. I work 3 sometimes 4 days a week. No more than 20 hours a week really around 18 hours. My field is desperate for workers so they work with me though they would prefer full time.

I work part time so I work every weekend. 16 hours. I still receive ssdi and go to school part time

I am free-lancing and highly recommend it. You can take on more or less work depending on your motivation. I work about 20 hours but have about 10-15 hours of administrative work that is unpaid. As someone with a challenge, it is better to be flexible with the working hours. I am planning on taking more work as a free-lancer. You can do many jobs as a free-lancer. I work as a teacher now and will take more work as a translator/writer. I enjoy working and earning money. I don't receive a disability income so I must earn enough to survive. I have to earn more to make ends meet. If you get a disability income, then you should not worry too much about how much you earn but worry about how much work you can do without becoming stressed out. I think earning money is beneficial for giving satisfaction and boosting one's confidence. I love working and am happier because I am working.

Hi Yaowen! Sharing that story of yours is really encouraging to me and even gives me some ideas about what I might want to apply for next, like one that is more solitary and easy-going. GIS stands for geographic information systems, which is the more scientific and data-driven side of geography and map-making. The pandemic has actually turned many jobs in my field into online jobs, so even though jobs have the option now of going back in-person many are staying online.

And I really appreciate the perspectives of Aviza, Halliebeth, bpforever1 also! You guys have really helped me to get out of my head a bit when it comes to looking for work again. New world views help me see that not every job is high impact and turn you into a workaholic that doesn’t get TO. I need to learn a bit more about free lancing since it is so flexible but still don’t know that much about it. Like bp says the whole reason for me to look for part time work is to build confidence and earn money to recoup some of my recent vacays. Part time may be a good place to start since many full time jobs require much more experience than what I can currently offer right now.