Do you ever feel like you need a break, like things are moving a bit too fast right now?
Social media is a firehose. Everything feels important though rarely is anything actually super important.
I think one of the challenges of our day and age is knowing what actually matters and getting to the signal in a very noisy world.
I’m a big fan of Tim Ferriss’s The Four Hour Workweek, which I re-read every few months. In that book he talks about an information diet where you severely cut back the information you are taking in.
I’ve already cut back the time I can spend on news and sites like Reddit, but I still spend too much time on Twitter and Facebook (mostly Twitter).
I’m addicted to Twitter. Their growth and product teams have done their job of addicting me to it.
Any of my friends or family will tell you that.
And that’s not ok with me.
I’ve decided that for the month of August, I am taking a Twitter sabbatical. I’ve been on Twitter actively since 2010 and rarely taken a break from it, and it is time.
Twitter has been amazing for my career, connecting me with amazing people and affording me so many opportunities.
In the last year or so though it feels like Twitter has become less of a place I want to be a lot. It’s become angry, full of trolls, and makes everything seem of equal importance (not to mention the outrage chamber and pile-on effect over the smallest things).
The reality is that not everything is of equal importance, and I want to rediscover what is and is not important.
Things that are happening right now:
- My wife’s whole side of the family is moving here in August, and I want to spend time with them.
- I have some big projects going on with Credo that I need to dedicate time to in order to hit my goals for the year, so I need to focus on those and not the SEO drama or crazy political news du jour.
- The weather is beautiful in Colorado in late summer and fall, and I want to spend time outside.
- Starting in late August I am traveling a lot, and thus need to focus on my business and not spend time on social media.
In short, I’m looking to regain my perspective on what needs my attention and what doesn’t, reconnect in the real world with friends and family, and generally spend less time consuming and more time creating in my business.
What I am doing is this:
- Having my wife change my Twitter password and not giving it to me until September 1st;
- Logging out everywhere.
There will still be auto-tweeted publishing blog posts and posts shared from Pocket when I favorite them (which automatically adds them to Buffer via IFTTT). I will also schedule various Credo pieces of evergreen content and promos for things I am doing (such as partner webinars), but I do not plan to be on Twitter engaging in comments at all.
See you in September on Twitter.
If I come back.
