After last week’s surprise, the rest of the week was a whirl of phone calls, meetings, and e-mail exchanges, making and renewing contacts, gathering information, and trying to get to a place where I’d have enough data to think about considering making plans.

I realized that while all that activity was necessary, it wasn’t sufficient, so I also blocked several hours of “Think Time” on my calendar for today. The plan was to stand in front of a whiteboard and write down positives and negatives of various options, make unanswered questions explicit, and ignore the world. I told a couple of colleagues that that was what I was going to do; I even blogged about it yesterday.

It didn’t happen.

Instead, I spent most of the day talking with people who’d also been affected (some directly, some by having their teams reduced), as well as several other colleagues in various parts of the business (at least two of whom had been my manager at one time or another). I also had a long session with IBM Benefits, so that I really understand what my choices and resources are if I do retire.

But what I really did was listen carefully to my gut.

Because it turns out that this decision isn’t going to be one I make entirely objectively, based on threats and opportunities, strengths and weaknesses, and financial considerations.

My gut has to be happy.

And it’s giving me a pretty clear message about what will make it happy; it’s a message which doesn’t require a whiteboard to analyze.

I’m going to sleep on that message tonight and make sure I’m reading it clearly.

Tomorrow could be interesting.

I had my first session today at Right Management, the outplacement firm that IBM has contracted with. I had a 90-minute one-on-one with a “Career Management Consultant”; we talked, unsurprisingly, about me and my options going forward.

There was some very concrete advice (have a local phone number and a “professional” email address for the search process; never answer a call to your cell phone that might be search-related unless you can actually talk right then (otherwise, let it go to voicemail); remember that your résumé is a sales document), as well as some discussion which centered on my own needs, desires, and skills.

I came out of the session with a few must-dos (some of which are administrative in nature), the realization that I can’t hop along both the internal and external paths for very long, and some hints towards turning my bulleted list of accomplishments into a résumé. Not bad for a first step.

And then I came home and spent the rest of the day on the phone (even attending one conference call, which will be the last in that series for me). It’s helpful to get the perspective of folks who have been through this process, as well as those who are still safely ensconced inside the Blue Curtain.

Tomorrow, I plan to go to the office; I have a lot of “think time” booked on my calendar. I expect to turn off the phone and Sametime for most of the day, too.