Midweek Check-In
Jan. 14th, 2016 01:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jon_chaissonIt seems every couple of years I have this nagging urge to shake up my usual schedule of personal habits and endeavors. It's almost like clockwork, actually. I'll start feeling complacent, start getting bored with hitting the same points over and over, and need a change of scenery. The turnaround seems to be about two years, three at the most.
So what does this mean? This means that I've been thinking about my internet habits again. Sure, I've had multiple sessions of unplugging for mental health reasons, as well as hiding away so I can finish off a major project, but they've always been for a finite amount of time. Once I'm rested and/or all caught up, I'm right back into the thick of it.
Yeah, I've been bringing up that point of 'remember back in 2002 when I was rarely online' and wanting to return to that, but never quite acting on it. It's still on my mind, but really, over the last few months I've been thinking about why I haven't acted on it. Part of it is the worry that no internet footprint = no visibility = no book sales. Part of it is just laziness and procrastination and distraction, that I can't be bothered to become a 21st century Luddite.
I've been making a few changes in those habits lately, though. How many years have I had Twitter open in a browser tab, next to my email box tab? Far too long. I've never been one to keep all kinds of browsers open anyway, just as I like to keep my PC desktop as clean and orderly as possible. [I have a few coworkers who have upwards to thirty or forty shortcuts pasted all over their screen. Just the idea of that makes me twitch!] But it's become all too obvioius that I'm distracting myself a lot more often than I have.
I know this for a fact because, as an experiment over the last month or so, I've been shutting down Twitter and sometimes even the email, leaving only the radio station I happen to be listening to. [Or if I'm listening to my mp3s, closing down the browser entirely.] So every time I've had the temptation to go online and read something, I'd have to open up a tab and go to the site. And lo and behold, I was opening it up way too often. Even during my writing time, I was doing it, whether I was doing my daily 750 or in the middle of a writing session.
That's not good.
SO! Here's the thing. It's time for me to seriously change my internet habits. Sure, I'll still visit Twitter to check in now and again, and I'll still be blogging on a weekly basis at my various places (here, Tumblr, and the 2 WP blogs), but other than that I think it's high time for me to take another vacation from social media, this one more permanent and extensive.
Point being: What writing should I really be focusing on? The 140-character bon mot, the comment of indignation, or the novels and stories I'm writing?
So what does this mean? This means that I've been thinking about my internet habits again. Sure, I've had multiple sessions of unplugging for mental health reasons, as well as hiding away so I can finish off a major project, but they've always been for a finite amount of time. Once I'm rested and/or all caught up, I'm right back into the thick of it.
Yeah, I've been bringing up that point of 'remember back in 2002 when I was rarely online' and wanting to return to that, but never quite acting on it. It's still on my mind, but really, over the last few months I've been thinking about why I haven't acted on it. Part of it is the worry that no internet footprint = no visibility = no book sales. Part of it is just laziness and procrastination and distraction, that I can't be bothered to become a 21st century Luddite.
I've been making a few changes in those habits lately, though. How many years have I had Twitter open in a browser tab, next to my email box tab? Far too long. I've never been one to keep all kinds of browsers open anyway, just as I like to keep my PC desktop as clean and orderly as possible. [I have a few coworkers who have upwards to thirty or forty shortcuts pasted all over their screen. Just the idea of that makes me twitch!] But it's become all too obvioius that I'm distracting myself a lot more often than I have.
I know this for a fact because, as an experiment over the last month or so, I've been shutting down Twitter and sometimes even the email, leaving only the radio station I happen to be listening to. [Or if I'm listening to my mp3s, closing down the browser entirely.] So every time I've had the temptation to go online and read something, I'd have to open up a tab and go to the site. And lo and behold, I was opening it up way too often. Even during my writing time, I was doing it, whether I was doing my daily 750 or in the middle of a writing session.
That's not good.
SO! Here's the thing. It's time for me to seriously change my internet habits. Sure, I'll still visit Twitter to check in now and again, and I'll still be blogging on a weekly basis at my various places (here, Tumblr, and the 2 WP blogs), but other than that I think it's high time for me to take another vacation from social media, this one more permanent and extensive.
Point being: What writing should I really be focusing on? The 140-character bon mot, the comment of indignation, or the novels and stories I'm writing?
