Operating Rhythms that Reduce Chaos
TL;DR Make the job search boring - in the best way. A daily timeboxed triage, one board, labels, and an evaluation day beat algorithm noise
In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity - Albert Einstein
The moment everything tilts
When the feeds got noisy and stale, I stopped grazing and built a ritual. The signal returned as soon as I did.
In those early days of job searching across various platforms, I felt busier in redundancy than I ever had while employed.
I also felt overwhelmed.
There’s so much to navigate and it’s easy to underestimate the amount of time, mental, and emotional effort that goes into the search and application process.
I knew that if I wanted to have some healing and rest and relaxation time in my days, I would need to find a repeatable process that would dull the roar.
Context — what’s at stake (for me)
Recommendation engines aren’t optimised for your sanity. I wanted a rhythm that created progress on demand.
I’m an advocate for reminders for job search filters but LinkedIn in particular didn’t seem to be very intuitive. In fact, after a week or so tweaking and saving searches in LinkedIn and battling with its AI suggestions, I strongly believe that LinkedIn’s Product and Development teams have left the building. Who signed off on that monstrosity of an experience? And what’s with all the ghost posts?
Of course, being in the position of no longer casually looking for a new gig puts a different spin on things and I continued my LinkedIn dance battle because… well… what were the other options?
The moment of decision
I chose one board, clear columns, and a short daily loop to track applications and avoid confusion and duplicity. I added regular evaluation days to prevent backlog bloat1.
What I did
Now, I can see that some people might think that I went overboard with this and maybe, in some ways, I did. I was still in work mode, flexing the brain muscle in delivery mode, yearning for a repeatable process.
One memory that stuck with me from a previous (recent) job search endeavour was how difficult it became to track where applications were up to, whether I’d reviewed a posting before and discarded it (and why). I wanted to be able to hop back to a job post to review the job description again if needed or pick up where I’d left off.
That’s how I decided on a kanban board to track my applications and jobs I was interested in2. I wanted a process where I could skim through job posts quickly over coffee and then triage them later. In my triage, I would triage them again - discarding the posts that didn’t resonate and progressing the ones that I would apply for.
I also used it as an opportunity to capture data based on my own evidence as I knew I would be writing a blog series and it might come in useful.
Board & columns
Kanban board with columns for each stage of an application’s journey, from search to a natural conclusion (employment offer or rejection)
Saved • For Evaluation • Applying • Interviewing • Offer • Unsuccessful - Confirmed • Unsuccessful - Unconfirmed.
Daily triage (45 - 60 mins)
My daily process became quite simple: check my emails based on my saved filters, click through on job postings that were interesting, hit ‘Save’, move on.
I’d then go into my saved jobs section in either Seek or LinkedIn and create a card for each saved item and a link to the post.
I’d also triage any movement in my existing applications such as rejections or request for a screening call.
That was it. If I wanted to do more on any given day, then I could. If I didn’t, I could pick up where I’d left off quite easily with minimum effort.
Seek email → LinkedIn email → create/update one card per role3.
Evaluation day
On one day (perhaps one where I’d taken a break to breathe fresh air and not job hunt) I checked in on my backlog of potentials to find there were 45 of them in there!
That was the day I realised I should have more than one evaluation day!
I reviewed the 45 (quite ruthlessly due to the overwhelm) and reduced it down to a viable 10 posts. Decide deliberately or unsave ruthlessly. Evaluation day is also application day for me so strike while the iron’s hot and send off the applications at the same time (not forgoing my stop rules and quality over quantity).
Stop rules
No late‑night applications; remove duplicates; document cut‑offs on the card.
Don’t apply for jobs when you’re tired. If midnight is your time, go for gold. It isn’t my time though and I recognised when tiredness was creeping in (or monotony) and stepped away.
I also found through my process that the same jobs are often posted more than once or… worse, I had unsaved a job only to be attracted to it at a later time. My process helped me notice these more and save myself some time. If there was something particularly noticeable about the post that caused me to demote it in the list, I would capture that on the card before archiving it.
What surprised me
Manual search beat algorithmic ‘recommendations’ by a mile.
A single evaluation day reduced stress all week but caused its own stress with an overwhelming backlog and stealing time that I could be using to apply for jobs or do something much more interesting and meaningful.
Ghost postings. I realised it before I started seeing the LinkedIn community complaining about them. What an absolute time-waster for people looking for a job and, in my opinion, quite insensitive to the current climate.
Leader’s Lens: If you manage people through change
• Share a basic search rhythm with impacted staff; structure returns agency.
• Reward process quality, not volume of applications.
Diary excerpt
“Today I opened Trello to evaluate and apply for viable jobs in the list. I don’t know how it got to 45 but bloody hell! Managed to whittle it down to 10 but there’s a couple of hours of my life that I won’t get back. NTS: make more time for evaluation days ‘cos that sucked!”.
Stage of Grief
Resurrection, Reconstruction
Try this (this week)
• Block 45 minutes for a triage session tomorrow.
• Book next week’s evaluation days (90 minutes).
Checklist
□ Kanban Board set with six columns.
□ Labels for Source/Priority/Status added.
□ Triage loop written down.
□ Evaluation checklist saved.
If your organisation is navigating change and you want calm, people‑first delivery without the drama, I can help.
This is based on my personal experience, anonymised to protect privacy. Nothing here is financial, legal, or medical advice - please seek professional guidance for your own situation.
In true Agile style, I’ve adapted my process over time as I’ve tested my approach or discovered alternative methods through research or engagement with my network. I have kept a process in place but the durations and cadence have morphed over time. The lesson: do what works for you and if it doesn’t work for you, or something else seems to work better, then do that. Don’t stagnate.
I used Trello because it is familiar to me and I have a free Atlassian suite that I use for a number of projects. There are other tools out there that operate in a similar way. I like Trello because it has drag and drop, a decent mobile app, and doesn’t rely on setting up complex workflows before you really know what your process flow is.
I’m aware that there are filters that you can save in both Seek and LinkedIn. I used them from time-to-time but liked the idea of the filters working offline for me. I also sank a silly amount of time into trying to rely on LinkedIn’s ‘we won’t show you this again’ and posts from 3 months ago functionality before realising that it simply doesn’t work how I needed it to and sucked my time from me more than it helped