Did you guys know that my blog turned four this month? Inward Facing Girl is officially the project I’ve been working on the longest, finally surpassing an overly reworked romantic comedy screenplay where the leading man went from an older uptight presidential candidate to a younger party boy senator. Yay!
I love writing in this space and sharing the things that inspire me and that I’m excited about, but like others I know, sometimes I find it overwhelming. I’ve rarely felt that way about my blog itself, just all of the stuff that surrounds being a blogger in the day of documenting everything everywhere always. It’s interesting to see how some bloggers and creators are dealing with this constant, often self-imposed, pressure to produce.
Talented graphic designer Amy Moore is just saying no to being connected to social media all the time. In fact, she’s removed social media apps from her phone, so if she’s actually going to log back in to any of those accounts it’s definitely going to be intentional. She’s decided that she wants to blog, pin, and design, and she’s sticking to it.
Erin Loechner of Design for Mankind decided that 2013 would be the time for focusing on less, which would actually amount to more. Last week she wrote a great post called The Power of Quiet about the massive amounts of stimulation we’re exposed to every day. She also introduced me to this interesting No Noise campaign from Selfridges Department Store in London that is selling de-branded versions of popular products, and provided an awesome link about how to introduce more “white space” into our lives.
Megan Gilger from The Fresh Exchange has a lot to say about the whole keeping up with everything thing that bloggers do. It can be exhausting, and sometimes we have to take a step back from all these things that we’re doing every single day in an almost robotic way to ask ourselves one simple question. Why?
Moorea Seal also reminds us of the importance of taking the time to think about why we do what we do, and Shauna James Ahern of Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef wants to write what she wants to write when she wants to write it.
And me? I’ve been thinking this kind of thing a lot lately – slowing down, being overstimulated, too much noise, etc. Have any of you noticed being more sensitive to noise than you used to be? I’m noticing it all the time. I have trouble focusing on conversations if I’m at loud restaurants or having dinner with more than a couple of people. Sounds seem louder than they used to. I’m starting to wonder if any of this has to do with how much time we spend online engrossed in our virtual worlds. Is it possible that we’re becoming so accustomed to virtual interaction that real world interaction is just too much for our senses to handle?
Then there’s the issue of stepping away from social media…when you work in social media. I mean, seriously. It can be tough, people! But in some ways it’s just like creating boundaries for anything else in your life. It’s up to us to decide to put down our iPhones and look up at the sky. We have to decide to just eat the freaking cupcake instead of photographing it first. Every excursion doesn’t have to be documented. Every thought doesn’t have to be about how to do more things or how to do things better. It’s okay to take a break. It’s okay to take an undocumented vacation. (Gasp!)
I want to make changes in the way I use social media in my own life and in my business, and work on manageable content marketing and social media plans for my clients. We don’t have to do it all and we don’t have to do it all the time. I’ll let you know what I come up with, but for now answer this question.
If you blog or use social media and had to give one thing up, what would it be?
Would you post less often? Stop gramming your instants? Be faceless on Facebook? I’d love to know what you would toss.