I knew it was going to happen. 11 days into this experiment and I have become overloaded. I can’t keep up. This feeling of having too much to see and do and keep track of has led to a demotivation which has ultimately led me to revert back to a simplistic way of seeing social media as a pure time waster.
I know, however, that there is more to it. I totally understand that community takes time and energy to develop and maintain. Staying on top of issues in my professional field takes proactive searching and reading. The question is–do I have the time and energy to keep up? The answer is–I need to prioritize.
Ok. I’ll be honest. The real problem was that I went back to work today. I have this fabulous job where I get every 4th January off to conduct research (or something that at least sounds kind of academic). But January is done. It is now nothing more than good tweet memories and exciting livechat experiences. It was fun, but now I have to figure out how to have a job, blog, tweet, Facebook, pin, stack, poke, AND play temple run–oh, yeah–and cook dinner. What stays and what goes? What does it really take to stay on top of friendships AND professional reading using my new social media tools?
I am in the midst of developing a morning and afternoon routine. I glance through Tweetdeck & Facebook each morning, tweeting or connecting with friends. Then in the afternoon, I go through Tweetdeck again, stopping to link to interesting blogs or commenting on professional topics. I am hoping this schedule wil at least help me keep up with the network I have worked so hard to develop.
My biggest problem is the blog. A good blog takes a while to research, then another chunk of time to write. Here are some really good ideas from Bridgett at Perideau Designs that I am going to try out. The best idea is a “blog log” where you can keep track of things to blog about in the future, as well as a place to keep track of helpful links that can be used in those blogs to make them more interesting and credible.
If you are following along with me on a social media journey to competence, let me be the voice of encouragement. We can do it. It might be time to pare down and reprioritize, but I am more convinced than ever that social media can minister to people in a way that those social media critics and spectators just can’t understand until they see it happen for themselves.
Peggy Kendall 