Monday 13 October 2014

Happy Monday

On Friday night The Bookworm went to bed earlyish, about 9pm. As usual I said I would be up soon. At 10:30 I realised that I had been almost obsessively cycling through my social media accounts for over an hour. I was waiting for a reply to something, hoping the person was online but also just looking at all the new things slide into my newsfeeds, cycling between so that I didn't miss anything new and exciting while catching up on a bit of Bloglovin. I kept telling myself "Just one more post, I'll just read one more, something positive to go to sleep with."

I need an intervention.

I am time-poor. I work full-time, with a daily commute (drive) approaching 2 hours, I study part time and write in my free time. I bemoan the fact I don't have enough time to write but Lady, there's your problem - an hour and a half of random social media. I consider that social media isn't time wasted, there is a friendship-maintaining/networking/contact-making/positive-ju-ju-giving aspect to it; but not if it is taking away from the things I want to be doing. I can't 'detox' because so much of building my blog is about interacting with you, my treasured readers, and it is the only way I can keep up with so many of my friends. I realised I felt very lonely on this Friday night, that I was aiming to fill the void with human contact, even if it was on the other side of the computer screen. Many of my friends are interstate and many of my local friends are also time-poor with schedules that completely contrast with mine. In those brief times we do actually manage to meet, it helps if I have an awareness of what has been going on in their lives for the last six months (yep, sometimes that long or longer). However,  I do need to cut back and perhaps allocate time to social media rather than allowing it to fill my moments in between.

How do you deal with social media? Have you found a balance?


Anyway, there were some moments in-between the scrolling and the work to enjoy the little moments and that is why we are here.

Things that made me happy this week:

:: Visiting my work friend and her brand new baby boy with gifts. He is so tiny and so squawky (as tiny babies are I guess) and I didn't want one at all. But it was beautiful to see the love on C's face and how well, at only five days old, he knew his mum. She hypothesised that it was just because he could smell her milk and I'm inclined to agree, he was sniffing around like a little pup at one stage.

:: Tea and cake at my friend's house. She made the tea, I made the cake and it was such a delightful afternoon interlude.

:: Sneezing on the tram and having another passenger say 'bless you.' I had just been thinking how soulless the early commuters can seem, so it was nice to be proven wrong.

:: Realising how much I adore learning. I had lectures this week for the second subject of my WSET Diploma. The subject is business-based, an area I have never studied before, so I was a little hesitant. I knew a little more than I gave myself credit for, just life-experience accrued, but I loved the discussion and the opportunity to increase that knowledge exponentially.

:: Wine-nerding in the afternoon. After class on the the second day a few of the guys hung about for a drink at the bar downstairs. Bellota has this cool setup where you can buy a bottle from their retail shop next door and just pay corkage. We tried 2 different bottles between the six of us and it was so lovely just sitting about and talking wine with some really interesting people.

:: A spontaneous invitation to the next door neighbour's barbeque. Such a simple thing that brought so much joy. I am aware that in the past I would probably have said no- I needed to do some study, I already had dinner in the fridge. I have been saying 'yes' more this year and it really is the way forward.

:: This gorgeous dinner of crumbed, pan-fried flathead and mango salad with a lime dressing; prepared by my personal chef. Also, the fact that it was a rare night together. Both of us studying and working is a tough gig.

:: Kindness. When you start actually looking for ways to help others there are just so many ways you can brighten somebody's day and brighten your own in the doing.


Happy Monday. In addition to telling me what made you happy this week, please give me your social media wrangling tips :)

6 comments:

  1. I find that I have to stay on top of the time I spend on social media. I spend the most time on Instagram but allocate 15 minutes to Pinterest in the morning, and night, 10 minutes to twitter in morning and night, 20 minutes of facebook interaction and I spend 2 hours reading blogs on a Monday and the weekend :) Nice to see you had some time for the other things you love too. Bec x

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  2. I'm not working at the moment, so I have to give myself a schedule and stick to it, otherwise I will lose all my time in surfing the web. Maybe this concept might be worth trying to schedule in a couple of times a week, you'd have to decide how long for. I generally find two hours to be the most optimal.

    I turn off - mobile phones - email - all social media - the tv - for two hours twice a day, and focus in on writing, or household chores that need doing.

    This has really been working for me - I'm scheduled out *weeks* ahead on both my blogs and in the case of one of them, out till December..

    Another thing you can try - and this is a concept I use fairly often - is to set a timer for 20 or 30 minutes and limit your social media time to those minutes. I use this to allow myself to do stuff I enjoy for that time, when it ends it is back to things I do not enjoy so much.

    Wow, that fish looks amazing.. might have to make a trip to the local fish buying place! ;)

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  3. I am totally guilty of the social media addiction time wasting thing... I have lost hours to this... I am forever running late because of this... I have no tips.

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  4. I think I have... I do the writing first, the social media second. x

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  5. It is doubly difficult for me. I work from home for myself using the internet. It is too easy to keep popping over to social media every few minutes for a break. I have to be really strong to keep all social media windows closed and only check g-mail once every hour or so. I think someone should invent an app which turns off access to all social-media for a pre-set period of time and can't be turned back on no matter what - lol.

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  6. I have no idea about social media rationing, I'm the worst.
    I'm just here for the sexy mango salad. And the saying more yeses.
    M x

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I love comments, whether you agree or disagree with me I would love to hear what you think.