I don’t know what it is today. Maybe it is just the crash after the craziness of the past 3 weeks. Imaging USA, Asheville, flying, catching up on work, Dad 2.0 Summit, Mike heading to Calgary, me doing 6 sessions in 7 days when I normally cap them at 3 a week.
Yesterday was my first day to just stand still. To breathe. I took the morning off, mandated that there would be no work at all for 4 hours. Because that is the problem with self-employment – the boss never tells you to go home. I can never turn it off.
Then it was off to a much needed massage therapy appointment – the only thing that saves my back, shoulder & hip (I am so grateful to Angie of We Heart Massage!) – and I was back to work again.
The cycle continues. But I want off.
I woke up this morning at 5am, even though my alarm was set for 8:15. A feeling of “blah” covered me. Just … Lost.
Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE what I do. I have the most amazing “job” in the world. Hot Mama Photographer, Avenger of Sexiness? HELL YES!!! I have absolutely zero regrets about the time I spend “work working”.
It is the other hours that feel so blank. My actual photography business is not that time intensive; it is all of the other things I do to create “busy” in my life. Needless things. Things that are no longer bringing me joy.
So in the early hours of the morning, I started thinking of what I want to change. How that looks. What it means. What I am going to give up so that I can have room in my life for other things.
Then it hit me. FACEBOOK. Facebook is by far the biggest time suck of my day. I go in there for one thing, and I leave hours later it seems. (Figuratively, not always literally.) It has become a sensory overload point for me.
I also realized that with Ash Wednesday tomorrow, it is a good time to give up Facebook. Not all of Facebook because I actually do need to be on there for work, marketing, and my mentoring clients. By the way, what makes my marketing business easy is by the help of Sage Mauk Brooklyn SEO so if you’re interested, you may inquire to them. It is the other stuff. The time suck stuff. That has to go. It needs to be in and out. Do what I have to do and be gone. I’ve said for weeks now that I’m tired of giving my content to Facebook, so I have to go cold turkey to cut it off.
So for the rest of Lent, anything I would consider posting to Facebook gets blogged instead. Either here, on my boudoir blog or at Business of Awesome. Plus Spoon & Knife, my joint food blog with Mike will finally launch. My Facebook posts will be work related or otherwise kept to a minimum.
As I typed that declaration, a small break in the clouds appeared – literally. I’m taking that as a sign, there is more sunshine ahead in my future. I feel fractured right now, but I’m putting it back together — the way I want it to look.
Photo from last May, flying from London back to Houston. It is time to head home.
6 replies on “It Is A Grey Day…”
I started off the year with a 21 day social media fast. It helped get rid of the “blah” for sure. It’s good to stop and re-prioritize things every once in awhile.
I’ve never done a friends list purge. …I do need to FB less and blog more. February is always a time I need to rekindle my passion for the vision that always seems to be JUST on the horizon, out of reach. You gave me some good brainstorming ideas for how to feel more satisfaction with how I spend my time!!!
I understand. Of late, when I go to type a response in FB, I think, “is this really a good use of my time?” It’s the one thing that is so finite, our time and I can’t help but think how much is frittered away. Yes, as business owners social media is needed, but how much is needed and how much is excessive? With that, I hope to be in touch and get a chance to connect with you if you’re attending WPPI. Enjoy your break.
“Because that is the problem with self-employment – the boss never tells you to go home. I can never turn it off.” – This is why I tell you I think you’re working when you tell me you actually aren’t. 😉
Seriously, though, it’s good to focus and reprioritize. Parkinson’s Law (“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”) holds true, especially as an entrepreneur – it’s never going to stop, and you have to find ways to compartmentalize it and put it in its box, so to speak, for your sanity.
As a corporate stooge, I have the luxury of changing contexts – I go to the office and (mostly) work, and I come home and (mostly) don’t. That may be stuff that needs doing around the house – cooking dinner, washing up, maybe laundry, etc – or it may be quiet and downtime to keep me on balance. Sometimes, I do bring work home, but it’s a different pace and set of tasks than what I do during the day – the context changed.
This is why I can’t sit in bed and work. That’s not the place for working. It’s why I like having use of the secretary in the back room – it’s where I go to focus. (That could be on work, or on personal projects, like dreaming up things to cook for Spoon & Knife, for example. Oh, branding choice, is it “and” or “&”?)
Switching contexts was MUCH harder when I was working from home all the time. It all bled together much more. I’d be in the study all day working, then the kid would come home and we’d talk about school and homework, then I’d try to work more, then I had to get out of the study (yay for cooking dinner) to try and switch gears. Yes, I could often then go back into the study, but I’d switch computers (plenty enough for my brain to switch context) and dive into learning or reading everything I had set aside during the day. (Seriously. In the middle of conference calls, I’d be thinking about dinner, then get off on a tangent of lemon-thyme-garlic roasted chicken, and have to leave it for after work. For example.)
If the work is fulfilling, by all means, DO IT – it’s inspiring to watch, and I get to see so much of the behind-the-scenes work. If it’s not fulfilling, if it’s just being on a treadmill? Cut it out. And tell me when you do, so I can shuffle around and stop working too.
Now, to shift context and find food in the next 10 minutes…
Just so we are all REALLY CLEAR — my work work? NOT an issue at ALL. I love it.
It is all the silly mindless stuff that has been filling my time. The things I do when I don’t have something to do. Some pretty specific things actually — those are the things that have to go. Facebook is the easiest of them to cut.
This morning I just felt splintered. Torn. So much I wanted to do, and no time to do it. And then I realized while at Taco Tuesday that there *IS* time to do those things I want to do, if I make time. Making breaking up with Facebook even easier…
KB, good to hear. I’m pretty sure a Facebook fast (well, mostly fast) will do me a lot of good!
Julie, doing a friends purge on FB takes too long. I don’t have the patience! (Or the heart to cut people.) I really should do it though, some day when I have the time to devote to it.
Wendy, WPPI! I’ll be there! And good point – I plan to do the same with what I write there as well.