Techno-Info-Blogo Burnout (Not Self-Immolation)
(originally uploaded by mdessem)
Sorry for the bit of drama in my last few posts, but as I stared at the ceiling the other night — not able to sleep because of the sheer amount of stuff going on in my life — I came to the instant realization that I needed to simplify a bit, you know, wrangle my schedule back to being my own.
The crazyness never should have progressed to this point; I know better.
When describing elements of good design to clients, I use the term “reduction,” more often than not to make clear that an additive approach to design — whether it be loading up the interface with features or extreme typographic combinations — is bound to fail, or in the very least, produce a garbled result.
Low and behold, when designer-boy paused to self-reflect the other night — rather, when my brain put me on repeat, caught up in a whirling broken record of commitment-paralysis — I clearly saw that my life was chock full of projects and passions with not many getting the attention they individually deserve.
Especially, my most important passion.
So when I crept out of bed the other night, I attempted to express what I was feeling — that I needed to reduce — without being too wordy. A couple of posts later, my brain felt as though my short-term destiny had been altered by just enough degrees to graciously allow the cycling of rapid thoughts to end and let me drift off to sleep.
Well, based on the comments, email and calls I’ve received from friends, family and distant readers, I figured that I need to provide a bit more insight as to where I am and why blogging has become so much of a drain.
Ridiculous Information Retrieval And Digestion Patterns
I spend an awful lot of time tracking blogs and sites of interest — upwards of 110 to 130 feeds at any given time — covering numerous industries, local and world politics, friends around the globe, etc. Many of my posts over the last six-months have amounted to short quotes from people talking about issues that I find interesting; I used the WP asides feature to drop these quick thoughts (or “pointers”) as an effort to push information out quickly, instead of sitting on it to form a larger essay post down the line. That was a smart solution to upping my output and reducing post paralysis, but I quickly became the idiot who’s addicted to checking Bloglines every 15 minutes for more material.
After pausing from blogging for just a few days, I’ve been able to treat Bloglines like my backup email account — checking once in the morning and once in the evening. I don’t know if it’ll last, but so far so good.
Forgetting Why I Blog
I’ve been writing on the web, one way or another, since 1997. Up until June of 2005, I never even glanced at web analytics — my personal state of mind was always my indicator of happiness or success. Shit, I’ve changed my domain name so many times in the past to reflect personal shifts in mood or focus (digitalportfolio, squareone, apperceptive), I never even paused to consider that my writing/poetry/blogging was being read by anyone with any degree of consistency. Well, in this age of Mint, Feedburner, Technorati, etc., I’ve come to understand that I am being read.
I rather enjoy the benefits of having a readership — hearing from old friends and meeting new ones through conversations found in comment threads, trackback pings, industry conferences or local meetups — but not when content production begins to replace blogging at my pace. Up until last week, I thought I had been publishing at my own pace, even though I knew that I was spending way too much time in the blogging process. After a bit of self-reflection, I’m not so sure that’s the case.
Moving Forward
My life is currently chock full of responsibility and not enough time in the day. I’m working with five different clients on a variety of projects, building my first non-profit and design consultancy, living with the love of my life and trying to keep up with my little bro back up in Jersey. Not one of them has been receiving enough attention from me. Throw in my friends & family and trying to get back in shape, and, well, I think you’re starting to feel me. Blogging is important, but it can’t be my central focus.
So where do I take my blogging from here?
- My Technorati profile reads: connecting*the*dots attempts to frame the convergence of political, technological and cultural memes through pointed essays and captured moments of communication across the web. It’s time to change up the editorial premise and make it much more geared towards my life. I’ll probably remove the name of the blog all together at some point.
- I’m going back to dropping poetry and writing longer essays when the mood strikes — getting away from keeping up with an intra-day, consecutive posting streak.
- John Ford and I are working on developing a collaborative blog project at dotmatrixproject.com. I’ll probably use this spot as the publishing interface for those design/tech posts, as John is working on code to scrape dotmatrixproject tagged posts from a universe of indexed sites and add them to dotmatrixproject as authored posts.
- I’ll continue to post perspective on items that outrage or move me — whether it be in the form of a video, a pointer, or an essay — but I’m going to pick my spots moving forward. Feel free to keep sending me items of interest; the random email pointers I’ve received from readers over the last year has made blogging extremely rewarding
So yeah, that’s the plan more or less; less posts, but with more personal and professional meaning and published on my schedule.
I do hope that you’ll keep your subscription as I attempt this transition. While I won’t be presenting as much info anymore, I’d like to believe that what I do publish will be worth the wait.
We’ll see.
Tags: analytics, blogging, change, citizen media, philosophy.
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As a frequent reader of this excellent blog I look forward to the change in your blogging schedule, if only because I know how much time blogging can take from your daily schedule. Most often it’s time that is taken away from those closest and nearest to you, family, kids, wife, girlfriend, etc. The fact that you will take time away from blogging to purposely spend that time with the ones you love most is admirable and surely to be welcomed by the recipient of your time. On the other hand I anticipate that while you will post less, I’m sure the quality of your blog and posts is unlikely to change.
I’ve often wondered with amazement at how you’ve managed to write such in depth material and with such frequency. Perhaps, it’s a maturing of the blogosphere or a change in my reading habits, or both, but I’ve started to see a trend of less posts, but more quality in most of the blogs I read.
I subscribe to over 100 blogs and count yours within my top 5. I’ve lately found that all of my top 5 favorite bloggers have started to post with less frequency. However, for me their posts have gotten better with some being much more structured, meaningful and analytical.
I for one welcome your change and now with the new Google Reader find it much easier to keep up with my top favorite blogs and the 95 others I casually read.
Best of Luck Sean.
thanks for the kind words of encouragement, tony. i’m honored to be in your top 5.
Blogs can’t love you back. Pretty red-haired girls, brothers, and friends can.
Hat tip.
yep, link love pales in comparison.
Sean…
I know how you feel. Been there. A sense of disconnect from the real world, losing more friends to moving (esp one Very Important one who I’m not sure how I’ll get on without), and the sheer exhaustion of running very hard and very fast through what feels like pudding just pushed me right over into something of a zen space where I needed to re-evaluate my priorities too…
so, I don’t post for a month, then do something stupid on Sara Lee and Ren & Stimpy and end up aggregated by Google Finance.
Go figure.
The blogosphere with all its vagaries, lack of long-term memory, and ethical issues will go on no matter what we do. What I’ve found is that the strongest connections–the ones that remain–are those that have transcended this ephemeral space. That’s the real ROI of blogging… :-)
Yeah you got readers, Sean — on the other side of the planet even.
It is not an ‘official’ proverb, but over here in the Netherlands people sometimes say, roughly translated, “People don’t have the time, but the time has the people”, meaning that, although time is a useful tool, at a certain point it will consume a person. I guess it’s the same with blogging, heck, just computers in general.
Incidentally, the last few weeks I was on the self-reflecting-tip as well (it must be the season or something) — although of a different nature but I surely see parallels: so many things wanting to get done and only so little time to do it in and an increassing TODO list; so I see what you mean. (Basically I waste a lot of my time creating code, or describing ideas that probably nobody else will use, to accomplish things that probably nobody else but myself wants done. Not only does that affect my social life (if you could call it that) and, more importantly, the time spent with my girl but, because I incidentally think of another useless, more fun thing to do, I would immediatelly jump on that, so hardly get anything done.)
Lately, I have come to terms with the fact that I am the one putting that strain on myself. There is plenty of time, it’s just a matter of getting your priorities straight. That however, I know, is more easily said than done… One thing was sure, if I kept on doing stuff that I never finish, all the time spent on that surely is lost time. So the first thing I did was stopping to put new (more fun) things on the top of my TODO list — pretty obvious but I should’ve done that ages ago, then I would actually have gotten some things properly finished.
Anyways, I dig your point-of-view and like reading the stuff that you write so I’ll surely be looking out for your posts.
Peace out, and may all your passions get adequate attention. ;-)
@tish: i couldn’t agree more about the friends i’ve made through blogging. who knows, maybe i could have met similar personalities at a local pub, but i doubt it. and that’s why i plan on continuing, just at my pace.
@navaho: thanks, bro. angela thanks you as well ;-)
Sean,
We were going to miss you terribly. That’s why I had to call…leaving a comment wasnt going to be enough. Your experience is not unique and the way you have decided to handle it offers a lot of lessons and insights to many of us. True, it is about getting your priorities and passions straight.
Sean,
Yes, I do read your blogs but fail to leave comments. This one is a must since I agree that a priority of life’s interests must be addressed in order to gain the most from any experience. I am sure that your focus will bring new joys to you and to those who love you. With the holidays around the bend, Dad and I look forward to hearing and sharing thoughts in your space. See you soon.
Love, Mom
Sean,
I agree with your thoughts on your new focuses in life. You sound like you have many projects and relationships that you are keeping you very busy. I am sure Angela appreciates your decision. Good luck in 2007 with all your endeavors.
Love,
Aunt Carol
Sounds good, and I’d bet the bennefits won’t stop on your plate but will flow through. All the very best for 2007 and beyond to you.
@ mom & carol: thanks for the support. our family is so important to me, but with us spread out all over the states, it’s so hard to keep up. i’m going to try to do more to keep in touch in the new year. i swear! ;-)
@ andre: thanks, man. i remember our brief conversation from way back when; it’s great to hear from you again. all the best to you and yours.