#there’s a hole in my schedule for whatever reason. my second period Does Not Exist

[ectoplasmer]

okay g’night tumblr your girl takes so much damage from melatonin it’s not even funny

[yostresswritinggirl]

Hi there. Can I request a poly relationship with Albedo, Xiao and Scaramouche ? A mix of fluff n a pinch of smut is this possible ?

First of all, what the fuck gave you this wacky idea? I thought at first, wow, this is so random, how did they think this. But then upon making the banner- IT'S ALL MY HUSBANDS IN ONE FICNWOFHLSNDLKSBSOANA

I'll do my best but oh gawd, I'm just so baffled right now HAHAHHA- brain juice GONE

Three Shorties Convention

Poly Relationship with Scaramouche, Albedo and Xiao... (event masterlist)

HOW?!

Three individuals from three different nations somehow collated to love a single human, that of which is you. With how wide your range is for such individuals, we can greatly assume that you are an adventurer travelling the world.

You first met Scaramouche who was undercover, on the way to Mondstadt/Liyue through boat. As he was in the down low, he made sure to act friendly to avoid suspicion. When he heard you were on the same path, he thought of using you as an alibi.

The next person you came across was Xiao when you were passing by the Inn. You heard of the Adepti residing in the area and wanted to ask for blessings as your journey would be much more confusing and dangerous. You lit up incense and a small prayer before leaving.

The last person you met was Albedo. Mond was your last destination before you laid low again until your next long expedition, and you were looking for Alice who you met long ago during your expeditions. You last heard about Mond from her and wanted to talk to her about your adventures but ended up empty.

What made them stay/intrigued? For Scaramouche, he saw you messing with the meteors and your theories, your disarrayed thoughts and ideas somehow made sense when he looks past the lines. And you ended up being the reason he found the large piece of meteor in that... island thingy.

For Xiao, it was the incense I mentioned earlier. It was something you got as a souvenir from a commission in Inazuma, and the scent it gave off brought him to Teyvat Nirvana, the voices silent and his body soothed. His curiousity got the best of him as he tracked your path.

And finally, you first piqued Albedo's interest when you mentioned your affiliation with Alice, and when he listened to your stories (you forced him to listen since Alice was not there) it remindee him greatly of his master.

All of them were attached so badly that on your way to the wilderness one day, the three of them ended up confronting you in some kind of JJBA way with you in the middle. Their Visions and weapons were raised in worry until you identified how you knew them all.

And when they found out of each other's interests towards you, they grew more wary but turned to you: who was busy picking up a mint flower to truly understand what's going on.

"I like all of you!" Somehow all three of them were smart enough to realize that you hold at least a drop of endearment for each of them.

It was supposed to be a silent competition, that then ended up to an ambiguous relationship through coexistence. The problem here is: all four of you barely understood the grounds of a proper relationship, and delved deeper into this polyamory without a second thought.

Equal Thirds

Oh geezus, this is the most confusing setup you've been through. Having to juggle between three continents, three men, three different occasions. They were so petty to the point that your schedule must be split EQUALLY or else the other two would ambush the place you would be in.

Albedo is the busiest and lax when it comes to your "relationship schedule." As a person of Alchemy, he takes days buried deep into his research and he is more than thankful for the existence of a schedule, as he struggles with the maintenance of human relations a concrete time and day for when he is needed balances this. Albedo requests your presence during the period after his major experiments where he wishes to unwind and empty his brain of the equations and machinations. His type of love deals with comfort and distraction.

Xiao has the most free time in your relationship in terms of work, but he is also the one tied down strictly to his code of conduct. His time with you comes from your visits to Liyue and he will always be by your side whether you're in the outskirts or within the mortal realm. His type of love, ironically, is filled with longing touches and whispers of adoration for your strength and light that silences the voices in his head.

Scaramouche is the neediest boy in this bunch, the most mortal of them and the farthest from your reach. Your relationship is a secret to everyone especially the Fatui, but he makes sure that every agent in Liyue and Mond does not lay a hand on you or else he's breaking that same limb. Your time with him comes when HE comes over no matter where you are or what you do. His 'love' is filled with materialism and feisty aura, revelling in strenght and power dynamics.

When you're in charge of the schedule is the rare times that all three of you are together, because you plan your expeditions well in par with their seemingly conflicting schedules. Soon enough you four would be a whole team of travellers going around Teyvat to indulge whatever curiousities you lay upon.

"Circus Festival in Fontaine? Sign me and my three boys the fuck up. No complains, I know you're free."

Camping and travelling with them is sooo convenient too because they're all incredibly strong in constitution and battle. You only need to hang back and watch as they bring you a fireworks of elements, which are thankfully not very harmful against each other.

You're NEVER hurt or even TOUCHED when they're with you, they always have keen eyes for danger and always stick close to you to make sure you are safe. But on a RARE occasion that you DO get hurt, they have a formation: Albedo is tasked in retrieving you, Scaramouche is the backup in clearing a safe area for possible first aid, and Xiao lets all hell break loose once you three are gone.

They help out as much as they can whenever you all go out to camp but ultimately it ends up being some kind of adventuring class for the three of them since you're the master in this field.

Cute stuff: You never keep watch because they always want to cuddle, so one would be up and the other two would be cuddling you on both sides, and the rounds would switch between them while you have your beauty nap.

Albedo is pretty chill with the other two, but Scaramouche and Xiao seem to have a tension between them due to his Harbinger status. Xiao is wary and protective of Albedo because of the knowledge of his background coming from Morax. And all three of you deal with Scara's chattiness.

Your Pet Names for them! Scaramouche: Darling; Xiao: Sweetie; Albedo: Beloved. If you go beyond that, they start to see favoritism so you picked them carefully.

Their Pet Names for you! Scaramouche: My Dear; Xiao: Beloved; Albedo: Sunshine.

Soon enough, their soft rivalries turned into friendly coexistence and they would start to at least see each other in a better light besides acquaintances. While nothing physical or lovey-dovey would happen between them as they only ever see you in that way, they develop respect and slight trust. Competition long gone as it dissolves into compassion in protecting you and giving you the loving you deserve.

@albaedhoe @struggljng @heisenwurst @moaa @dandelion-dreams @witchsungie @lehra @kookieyachi @struggljng @zelos-simp @legionqueensav @snackgod @rxsalinee @cala-ran @wind-wheel @lilydewi22

Softcore under the cut! No looking, my children

In this relationship, individual and multiple participating intercourse is normal, and they happen when all parties involved are ever comfortable. With the fact that you'll change continents in mind soon after, the boys have their little rituals with you.

The most prominent of all would be Scaramouche's signature hickey on your neck. He sucks it hard enough to make it stay for WEEKS, so that when the other boys move to kiss you on your neck, they see the apparent mark and groan to themselves in defeat. It was your sensitive and ticklish spot, and he makes sure he owns it.

For Albedo, he almost always (probably in a kink way) do it with you on a surface that's NOT the bed. Table, chair, sofa, his lap, it seems that the bed is a sacred place for rest. And he usually ends up doing it when he is about to finish his work, hence the convenience of such furnitures. You were conditioned to the point that if you even just innocently lean on a furniture, your mind and body immediately snaps back to those moments, making you back off with a flushed face.

Xiao is the most innocent and yeet friskiest of them all. He loves to litter you with kisses all over your body, no bites and no scratches, just innocent flutters of his lips that makes you tingle. But such moments of lovemaking... seem to always happen on the Inn's balcony. Most of the time it's when the door leading there is closed for the night, but you were sure there were occasions that someone at least knew or saw what was happening, but you two were too drowned in pleasure to notice.

Whenever all four of you were to participate, safe words are always emphasized. Because you're suffocating right after between their bodies with all holes filled to the brim with them. Usually the formation goes as: Albedo behind you, Xiao in front and Scaramouche in your mouth. They may switch up when you still have the stamina but that's their default order, and yes, you orgasm multiple times and are overstimulated a lot. To the point that you're getting used to it.

It's a golden rule to always shower before and after your session, and they would be very caring and gentle during aftercare. With this arrangement, you always have a large bed rented or in your arsenal for a huge cuddle session at night.

[ffwriteradvisor]

Rewriting Old Stories

Rewrites are harder than people give them credit for. You can’t just go back and correct the grammatical errors and misspellings and call it a ‘rewrite’ - at best, it’s a second-draft.

Speaking as someone who’s tried to rewrite my most popular fic on three to four separate occasions to varying degrees of failure (I’m working on a fifth now with higher hopes), a rewrite is a lot more involved than that.

The thing to remember when you start a rewrite is that you’re simultaneously working with a story you’re more than likely both embarrassed about and nostalgic for on some level. Yes, it might be showing its age or your inexperience at the time of writing it, but you can also remember how fun it was to write and share it back in the day. Part of you knows you can do better now - if not on a creative level, a technical one at least - but another part wants to leave it as is, either because you want to move onto new things or because you don’t know if you can ‘fix’ it and don’t want to risk messing around on your own ‘sacred ground’.

So that’s the first thing that you need to ask yourself before setting out on a Rewrite - do you actually want to rewrite this story?

If the answer to that question is ‘yes’, then keep reading.

There are a couple different ways to approach the Rewrite.

1) ‘Oh god, burn it and pull something salvageable out of the wreckage’ is probably the wrong way to do it. That’s not to say you can’t pull good ideas from your earlier fics and use them somewhere else, but you should go into it with an open mind rather than treating your old story as an enemy to be defeated and looted of their valuables.

2) A better way to approach it is as a tune-up. This can run from ignoring the bulk of the content and focusing on tightening up the gears (though this is pretty much a second-draft rather than a proper rewrite unless there’s a lot of tightening up to do) to dismantling the whole thing so you can eliminate the plot holes, improve the character arcs and interactions, and get rid of anything that just didn’t work the first time around.

Or if you’re feeling particularly ambitious...

3) You can approach it as an opportunity to make your story a ‘wider universe’. This is a combination of points 1 and 2 - not only are you dismantling the original, you’re throwing in a lot of loose parts from other stories you’ve abandoned along the way, meaning that the end product is going to be even bigger and more complicated than anything would be on its lonesome.

I’ve been working with option 3 recently, trying to construct a gestalt story out of my large collection of One Piece OCs and the half-dozen started and abandoned fic ideas I’ve had for that fandom over the years. I can speak from my personal experience that this is very difficult. You’re snipping and twisting plot threads together and trying to find natural feeling connection points between what started as completely unrelated projects.

Once you settle on how extensive you intend for this project to be, then you can move onto the next set of questions.

First - what do you want from this story?

Do you want to fix the problems you didn’t see occurring as the result of your OCs butterflying away the canon plot the first time around? Do you want to make an AU of your original story that goes in a different story direction at Chapter 10 compared to where you went the first time around? Do you want to aim for a different vibe entirely than what ended up on the page the first time around?

You can answer yes to any or all of those questions. You can even ask completely different ones. All that matters is that you figure out what you’re aiming for here.

Second - are you ready to re-read it?

Because you’re going to have to. Maybe even multiple times, so get ready to smother your initial cringe reaction to the writing of 2013!you. It might be ‘sacred ground’ on some level, but you are also crawling into the Wayback Machine just for the explicit purpose of looking at a period in your life you moved past for a reason.

There's going to be weird figures of speech, bad grammar that even your initial proof-reading attempts might have missed, questionable takes, and a lot of things that got knocked out of your system as you gained more experience as both a writer, fandom participant, and all around person. Skip over the superficial stuff for now - you will have to go back later and see if there's any more specific stuff that you can and should work with - and just stick with the meat and bones of what happened in the story.

Third - Take notes. For the love of god, take notes.

Make sure those notes are extensive - they should cover every change you made to the canon, every major (and most of the minor) plot points involved in your story, every gimmick that showed up (ghosts, dramatic reveals, surprise developments), and then some. Anything that sticks out to you as something even mildly important, you should make note of.

This will save you the trouble of constantly re-reading the original after your first few goes through.

Then, take those notes and boil them down. Was this thing that was brought up a thread that wove into the greater tapestry of the story or was 2013!you throwing shit at the wall just to see if it would stick, only to forget all about it by the time the next chapter rolled around? Does that other choice work with what you know of the universe now and, if not, do you want to change the thing to work with the setting, the setting to work with the thing, or just do away with the thing altogether? Do these relatively small things that were thrown out at random have enough common ground for you to string them together into an overarching theme?

Fourth - start plotting.

A lot of the problems I’ve run into writing fic is a lack of forward thinking. I didn’t plan ahead, I didn’t try to analyze the direction of the plot was developing in, I didn’t go into the project with any goals or expectations...

Those are mistakes you should try to avoid making.

Plotting ahead can help a lot with avoiding these and can help you develop new ideas - a character who goes through a series of dramatic events in a short period of time is prime for an angst episode that you might not have written in the first time around, or the gradual revelation of things a character shouldn’t rightly have knowledge of might make a big reveal about them being an outside context problem for the setting a lot more understandable - after all, what’s the point of an answer to a question nobody was asking?

Try to make a rough timeline of events. This doesn’t have to line up with a canon-timeline, but it can be helpful if your story intersects with canon events or characters at any point.

Even stuff that you don’t have a hard date or place in the plot for can be useful here - just keep it floating until you find a place where it slots in well between what the characters need to be capable of and where the rest of the plot is tonally.

You don’t have to adhere strictly to the first plotline you come up with - writing is as much an art of discovery as it is planning - but it’s always good to have on to start with.

My best three pieces of advice for doing a rewrite?

1) Take your time. A lot of the problems with your first story, besides inexperience, can be rooted with being in a rush. A rush to keep the updates coming, a rush to get to 'the good stuff', a rush to fit in writing with the rest of your life schedule. This time, give everything time. Time to research, time to bounce ideas off of friends, time to think about the implications of what a character doing XYZ would actually mean, time to check over your work for any holes you didn't catch while writing it. You're working with fanfiction, a land where deadlines almost never exist unless you set them yourself. Take advantage of that. 2) Never make it a straight retread 'but edgier/meme-ier/whatever-ier this time'. If you want to shift the genre, you have to put effort into changing the nature of the story in a way that feel natural to it. Your audience 'knows' the characters by now and will be thrown off by a new version that barely resembles the old that's somehow still running through the same story you told before. 3) Give your old audience something new to chew on.

This ties back into the second point a bit, but seriously; make sure that something new happens in the story. Had a lull period in your first go because there was a similar time-gap in the original series? Fill it with something - a new enemy, a casual event to unwind and connect your characters better, even a 'what's happening elsewhere' snippet. Had a character with a vague backstory? See if there's a 'natural' place to slot them in with the canon - depending on what fandom you're working with, that could run anywhere from specific locations and scenarios to just fitting with a larger running theme in other character's backstories.

You don't have to make a masterpiece, but there are going to be blank spaces in the canvas of your original telling where there's room to make more. A new audience might not realize there was nothing there the first time around, but your old audience will see the new content and appreciate it. You don't have to do anything big - sometimes changing too much will break the spirit of it being a 'rewrite' entirely - but try to keep it fresh, even if that's just filling in holes that nobody noticed in your original go. Anyway, good luck with your writing, regardless of if that writing is a rewrite or more original stuff.

[cash4youblog]

The Most Important Lesson I Learned During My Social Media Detox

On the morning of April 29th, I deleted the Instagram app from my phone. It was the last social media app to go, as I had deactivated my Facebook account in 2016 and removed the Twitter app from my phone in March. I never thought I would delete the Instagram app, because of all the social media platforms out there, it had always been my favourite. But after yet another sleepless night in April, I could no longer hide from the truth: my anxiety had fueled a new level of addiction to my phone and I had to kick it.

I say I “had” to kick it because being addicted to looking at my phone and at social media does not align with my values. Over the past few years, I think you’ve all witnessed some of the transformations I’ve made in my life, including falling in love with the outdoors, and wanting to spend less time working and more time living. My phone is a great tool, in that it can help me navigate new territory and take pictures along the way. But it can’t help me do any of the other “living” I want to do; neither can social media.

Even though spending a lot of time looking at my phone or at social media doesn’t align with my values, I’m not immune to getting sucked in. Sure, I’m fairly self-aware, but I’m not a robot. I don’t operate on command, and I don’t automatically shutdown at certain times of the day. In April, I learned the exact opposite was true: when I was anxious, I looked at it more; went further down the rabbit hole; and felt worse about everything I found. On the morning of April 29th, I knew my online life needed a reset. It was time for a social media detox.

The Rules for My Social Media Detox

In the past, I will admit I have been hesitant to do any type of social media detox. My reasoning: I felt it was a necessary part of life, and that we should simply learn how to use it more mindfully rather than ban ourselves completely. (Yes, I’m aware of the irony that this thought came from the same girl who banned herself from shopping for two years. What can I say? Humans are complex! And I was a Communications major who, at one time, truly loved social media.) Still, once you see something, you can’t unsee it. So, when I finally saw how unhappy looking at social media made me, I knew I needed a break from it.

The rules for my social media detox were simple:

remove all social media apps from my phone

logout of all social media sites on my computer

use Buffer to schedule posts for my blog and Rockstar Finance

and don’t check any of my profiles!

The 30-day social media detox was intended to last from April 29th to May 28th. I was hesitant to walk away for such a long period of time, especially since I work for myself and have an “online presence” or whatever you want to call it. But like most of the other challenges I’ve set for myself, I knew this one was essential. In fact, tuning in to what my body and mind ask for would end up being just one of the many lessons I would take from this experience. But before I jump into the lessons, I should first tell you how the detox went, including some of the things I noticed about myself – and others – when I was offline.

How I Used Social Media Before the Detox

To have a better understanding of what this detox entailed, you should have a clear picture of exactly what type of social media user I was when I started. As I mentioned, I had already deleted the Facebook and Twitter apps from my phone. I deleted Facebook altogether in May 2016, but I still managed a few business pages and groups, which I did from my computer. And I checked Twitter regularly on my computer, as well, but didn’t feel the need to have 24/7 access to it from my phone. I deleted the Twitter app in March, and had enjoyed feeling slightly less connected without it.

The one app I still checked often was Instagram. I have always loved Instagram. It has allowed me to share pictures of the beautiful scenery I’m surrounded by every day, and helped me discover new places to explore. I have also met some of my closest friends on Instagram! The first friend I made when I moved to Port Moody and the first friend I’ve made since moving to Squamish are both people I had connected with on Instagram. Our conversations started online, but through the pictures and stories we shared, we knew we could probably take them offline too – and we did!

The day I decided to make my Instagram profile a “business profile” was the day I started to get a little less enjoyment from the app. Instead of simply posting a picture, I started to look at how that picture was performing. I also found myself having more conversations with friends about how to optimize posts in order to get more likes. It was all about the likes. What I wrote in the captions was honest, but the profiles I tagged and the hashtags I used were intentionally chosen in the hopes it would bring in more likes. And if I didn’t get enough engagement with a post, I genuinely felt like it wasn’t a good enough picture. It wasn’t fun anymore; it was business. The same became true with Twitter and my tweets.

Even though it felt like business, Instagram – like all social media platforms – was also a rabbit hole. It was too easy to see I was tagged in a post, check out the picture, read the comments, reply to the post, then visit the profile of the person who took the picture, check out a few more of their pictures, look at the list of profiles similar to theirs, check out their pictures, and so on and so forth. All of a sudden, 10 or 20 minutes had gone by, and I had forgotten why I’d opened up the app to begin with. That’s not to say I never found or connected with cool people that way, but this happened way more often than I liked.

I knew things were really bad when my insomnia on April 28th caused me to pick up my phone at 11pm, 12am, 12:30am, 12:40am, 12:50am 1am, 1:10am … until I finally passed out around 3:30am. The dogs woke me up at 6:30am, and I knew I couldn’t survive like that another day. My anxiety had fueled a new level of addiction to my phone and I had to kick it.

What My Life Was Like Without Social Media

I don’t think I’ll bore you with all the nitty gritty details of what each and every day looked like. (I did keep a journal and documented most of them, but it’s not exactly an exciting read!) Instead, I’ll share some of the things that stood out most to me. The first thing I noticed, of course, was how often I reached for my phone. As soon as I clicked the home button, however, I realized the only thing I could check was my email. Email is my least favourite communication tool, so I didn’t check it very often. I just spent ~14 days reaching for my phone, realizing I didn’t care if I had new email then putting it down again. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

The second thing I noticed, in those first two weeks, was how many times I thought about posting pictures of what I was doing. I would be out on a hike and still take pictures, but would think to myself, “If I don’t post this, did it really happen?” Obviously, laughter ensued. Instead of posting pictures, however, I sent them to the one or two people I really wanted to share them with. This meant a handful of friends got a lot more pictures delivered via iMessage, and I got to have a lot of meaningful conversations with them.

That brings me to my third point, which is that I strengthened a handful of friendships during my social media detox. Instead of simply double-tapping a picture on Instagram or replying to a tweet, we had real conversations – via text, the phone, Skype, etc. Two friends, in particular, quickly became the people I spoke to on an almost-daily basis. To counter that, unfortunately, I also found a few of my friendships quietened down or died off. I don’t know if that’s because I was offline, or because we have gone down different paths lately. But it did make me think about how the connections we “maintain” online aren’t always meant to last forever.

Finally, one of the best – and most unexpected – outcomes was that I slept better than I had in months. Since October, I had been in a new and terrible sleeping pattern. I was lucky if I could get six hours a night, and especially lucky if I could sleep in past 6am. Within the first few days of my social media detox, I was getting at least eight hours of sleep and was sleeping in until 7-7:30am! The non-morning people probably still think that’s too early, but this felt incredible to me. The bags under my eyes started to diminish, I had more energy and just felt better overall each day – all because I wasn’t checking Instagram before bed.

Of course, some of these things changed when Molly passed away. Namely, I went back to not sleeping very well. All I did was hangout with (and worry about) Lexie. She had spent her entire life with Molly, and I didn’t want her to be alone. I also didn’t want to be alone, but didn’t want to leave the house without her. So, I decided to quit the detox early and downloaded Instagram on May 22nd. There was nothing impulsive about this. I just wanted to share the news (writing little obituaries for Molly and Lexie was part of my healing process) and share pictures and videos of my time with Lexie during her final days. <3

Other Observations I Made During My Social Media Detox

So, it wasn’t a perfect slow living experiment. I witnessed some positive differences in my behaviour and built upon a handful of existing friendships. Being offline also helped me stay more present and alert with the girls, during the time they needed me the most (and that’s time I could never have gotten back). But I did genuinely miss a few things about social media, during those 23 days (I only stayed off Facebook for the full 30). Specifically, there were two friends who were on big life-changing journeys, and I missed reading their updates on Instagram, and seeing pictures and videos from the beautiful places they were visiting.

There are a few other observations I made during my social media detox:

I tracked how many hours I was using my phone with the Moment app, and found I spent only 35% of my usual time on it without social media. It also (obviously) held a charge for a lot longer.

I can’t tell if it made me any more productive. I finished the second draft of The Year of Less, but I also quit freelancing (more on that later) and spent a lot of time doing nothing.

I did feel out of the loop on things, like current events. To be fair, I could have done a better job of checking the news on various sites. It just didn’t feel important compared to what was happening right in front of me at home. And I will never regret being uninformed for one month.

I found myself in a lot of conversations with friends who asked, “did you hear about X thing happening in Y city or to Z person?” When I said no and asked for more details, they couldn’t give me any. “That’s all I know,” they said. That’s all most of us know, if we don’t read past the headlines. And that’s what we do: think that what we can learn in 140 characters is enough to stay “in the loop”.

And one observation I’ve made since starting to use Instagram again is somewhat surprising: fewer people text me. I don’t know if it’s because they are now getting updates about me online, but I feel as though I’ve had fewer (and less meaningful) conversations since posting again. That’s something I need to think about more, which brings me to my final thoughts on this experiment.

How I Plan to Use Social Media in the Future

I had such a negative mindset about social media, when I started the detox, that I honestly thought I would be deleting some of my profiles by the end. Twitter had been fuelling my anxiety for weeks, as had Facebook the year before. I knew I wouldn’t delete Instagram, but I also knew the way I’d been using it had to change. I was so convinced I would be anti-social media, by the end of this, that I actually wrote an outline for the post where I would announce why I was walking away from it. Instead, I’ve gone back to my original thought: that we should simply learn how to use it more mindfully rather than ban ourselves completely.

When I looked back at that post I had drafted, I realized most of the reasons I was thinking about quitting social media were related to the fact that it wasn’t fun anymore. Some of that is because what we see online has been extremely negative (even downright mean) since the election. But it’s also because I had turned it all into business. I had never been someone who cared about the numbers, and then one day I started paying attention to them. I also started caring about the overall look/feel of my profiles. I thought that was what I was “supposed to do” in order to grow my business or to seem more legit (and imagine many bloggers and online business owners feel the same).

I’ve bucked most of the trends of what we’re “supposed to do” for years. I’ve never followed thousands of people in hopes they will follow me in return. I’ve always known I would rather have fewer followers who engage with my content rather than an inflated number that makes me seem more important. I also refuse to schedule content to publish around the clock. The business blogs tell me it will increase my pageviews, but I would rather have all my interactions occur in real-time. These are just a couple of the ways I’ve stuck to my morals while building my business. The experts might tell me I’m doing it wrong, but doing things their way isn’t fun. And if it’s not fun, what’s the point?

The most important lesson I learned during my social media detox is to make your own rules. Click To Tweet

I’m going to ignore every article about how to increase my engagement and achieve some meaningless goal, and go back to doing what I used to do: sharing my story and connecting with people. Social media doesn’t have to suck. For as much as I was hating on Twitter earlier this year, I am in control of how I use it – and all social media platforms, for that matter. I know it’s a powerful tool, but I don’t care how it affects my business. I want the power to be all about the connections we make. I love hanging out with you guys (and am using this penguin picture to show you how much I love it). I just want to do it my way. Here’s what that will look like:

Facebook: I’ll still use it to share all my new blog posts, and some other posts I think you would like.

Twitter: Ditto. But I’ll never schedule anything. I only want to post things when I know I’ll be available to have a conversation with you.

Instagram: I actually think I’m going to use this platform a little more than usual (namely, stories). However, I won’t be tagging profiles or using hashtags in posts. I don’t care how many people like my photos. I’ll share things because I want to, not because I want it to get any amount of validation.

Also, if the thought of using social media strategically makes you feel icky, go look at how some of the people you look up to in your industry use it. For me, that meant looking at the profiles of Cheryl Strayed and Elizabeth Gilbert and Glennon Doyle Melton. These women don’t have strategies. They all do things differently but have one thing in common: they post what comes from the heart.

Experiment #5: Slow Technology

All-in-all, while I didn’t fully complete the slow living experiment I had mapped out, I still feel incredibly happy with the lessons I took away from it.

do a 30-day social media detox (April 29th – May 28th) – 76% complete

figure out the role I want social media to play in my life – done!

check/reply to email less often (also experiment with not checking on my phone) – done!

figure out the role I want technology to play in my life (phone, computers, TV, etc.) – not really

read from a book every day – nope

As I am slowly easing myself back onto social media, there is one new habit I built this month that I hope I can hold onto forever: the feeling of not wanting to look at my phone very often. It’s hard to describe, but I genuinely feel an aversion to carrying my phone around with me and looking at it all the time. Yes, it can be a way to connect with people, but the connection you make when you sit across from someone and look them in the eyes is so much better. I vow to do a lot more of that in the future. <3

Books and Podcasts I Consumed This Month

Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig

The Magnolia Story by Chip and Johanna Gaines

At Home in the World by Tsh Oxenreider

Forward by Abby Wambach

The Slow Home Podcast with Brooke McAlary (loving the new meditation series!)

The Most Important Lesson I Learned During My Social Media Detox posted first on http://ift.tt/2sSbQiu

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The Most Important Lesson I Learned During My Social Media Detox

On the morning of April 29th, I deleted the Instagram app from my phone. It was the last social media app to go, as I had deactivated my Facebook account in 2016 and removed the Twitter app from my phone in March. I never thought I would delete the Instagram app, because of all the social media platforms out there, it had always been my favourite. But after yet another sleepless night in April, I could no longer hide from the truth: my anxiety had fueled a new level of addiction to my phone and I had to kick it.

I say I “had” to kick it because being addicted to looking at my phone and at social media does not align with my values. Over the past few years, I think you’ve all witnessed some of the transformations I’ve made in my life, including falling in love with the outdoors, and wanting to spend less time working and more time living. My phone is a great tool, in that it can help me navigate new territory and take pictures along the way. But it can’t help me do any of the other “living” I want to do; neither can social media.

Even though spending a lot of time looking at my phone or at social media doesn’t align with my values, I’m not immune to getting sucked in. Sure, I’m fairly self-aware, but I’m not a robot. I don’t operate on command, and I don’t automatically shutdown at certain times of the day. In April, I learned the exact opposite was true: when I was anxious, I looked at it more; went further down the rabbit hole; and felt worse about everything I found. On the morning of April 29th, I knew my online life needed a reset. It was time for a social media detox.

The Rules for My Social Media Detox

In the past, I will admit I have been hesitant to do any type of social media detox. My reasoning: I felt it was a necessary part of life, and that we should simply learn how to use it more mindfully rather than ban ourselves completely. (Yes, I’m aware of the irony that this thought came from the same girl who banned herself from shopping for two years. What can I say? Humans are complex! And I was a Communications major who, at one time, truly loved social media.) Still, once you see something, you can’t unsee it. So, when I finally saw how unhappy looking at social media made me, I knew I needed a break from it.

The rules for my social media detox were simple:

remove all social media apps from my phone

logout of all social media sites on my computer

use Buffer to schedule posts for my blog and Rockstar Finance

and don’t check any of my profiles!

The 30-day social media detox was intended to last from April 29th to May 28th. I was hesitant to walk away for such a long period of time, especially since I work for myself and have an “online presence” or whatever you want to call it. But like most of the other challenges I’ve set for myself, I knew this one was essential. In fact, tuning in to what my body and mind ask for would end up being just one of the many lessons I would take from this experience. But before I jump into the lessons, I should first tell you how the detox went, including some of the things I noticed about myself – and others – when I was offline.

How I Used Social Media Before the Detox

To have a better understanding of what this detox entailed, you should have a clear picture of exactly what type of social media user I was when I started. As I mentioned, I had already deleted the Facebook and Twitter apps from my phone. I deleted Facebook altogether in May 2016, but I still managed a few business pages and groups, which I did from my computer. And I checked Twitter regularly on my computer, as well, but didn’t feel the need to have 24/7 access to it from my phone. I deleted the Twitter app in March, and had enjoyed feeling slightly less connected without it.

The one app I still checked often was Instagram. I have always loved Instagram. It has allowed me to share pictures of the beautiful scenery I’m surrounded by every day, and helped me discover new places to explore. I have also met some of my closest friends on Instagram! The first friend I made when I moved to Port Moody and the first friend I’ve made since moving to Squamish are both people I had connected with on Instagram. Our conversations started online, but through the pictures and stories we shared, we knew we could probably take them offline too – and we did!

The day I decided to make my Instagram profile a “business profile” was the day I started to get a little less enjoyment from the app. Instead of simply posting a picture, I started to look at how that picture was performing. I also found myself having more conversations with friends about how to optimize posts in order to get more likes. It was all about the likes. What I wrote in the captions was honest, but the profiles I tagged and the hashtags I used were intentionally chosen in the hopes it would bring in more likes. And if I didn’t get enough engagement with a post, I genuinely felt like it wasn’t a good enough picture. It wasn’t fun anymore; it was business. The same became true with Twitter and my tweets.

Even though it felt like business, Instagram – like all social media platforms – was also a rabbit hole. It was too easy to see I was tagged in a post, check out the picture, read the comments, reply to the post, then visit the profile of the person who took the picture, check out a few more of their pictures, look at the list of profiles similar to theirs, check out their pictures, and so on and so forth. All of a sudden, 10 or 20 minutes had gone by, and I had forgotten why I’d opened up the app to begin with. That’s not to say I never found or connected with cool people that way, but this happened way more often than I liked.

I knew things were really bad when my insomnia on April 28th caused me to pick up my phone at 11pm, 12am, 12:30am, 12:40am, 12:50am 1am, 1:10am … until I finally passed out around 3:30am. The dogs woke me up at 6:30am, and I knew I couldn’t survive like that another day. My anxiety had fueled a new level of addiction to my phone and I had to kick it.

What My Life Was Like Without Social Media

I don’t think I’ll bore you with all the nitty gritty details of what each and every day looked like. (I did keep a journal and documented most of them, but it’s not exactly an exciting read!) Instead, I’ll share some of the things that stood out most to me. The first thing I noticed, of course, was how often I reached for my phone. As soon as I clicked the home button, however, I realized the only thing I could check was my email. Email is my least favourite communication tool, so I didn’t check it very often. I just spent ~14 days reaching for my phone, realizing I didn’t care if I had new email then putting it down again. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

The second thing I noticed, in those first two weeks, was how many times I thought about posting pictures of what I was doing. I would be out on a hike and still take pictures, but would think to myself, “If I don’t post this, did it really happen?” Obviously, laughter ensued. Instead of posting pictures, however, I sent them to the one or two people I really wanted to share them with. This meant a handful of friends got a lot more pictures delivered via iMessage, and I got to have a lot of meaningful conversations with them.

That brings me to my third point, which is that I strengthened a handful of friendships during my social media detox. Instead of simply double-tapping a picture on Instagram or replying to a tweet, we had real conversations – via text, the phone, Skype, etc. Two friends, in particular, quickly became the people I spoke to on an almost-daily basis. To counter that, unfortunately, I also found a few of my friendships quietened down or died off. I don’t know if that’s because I was offline, or because we have gone down different paths lately. But it did make me think about how the connections we “maintain” online aren’t always meant to last forever.

Finally, one of the best – and most unexpected – outcomes was that I slept better than I had in months. Since October, I had been in a new and terrible sleeping pattern. I was lucky if I could get six hours a night, and especially lucky if I could sleep in past 6am. Within the first few days of my social media detox, I was getting at least eight hours of sleep and was sleeping in until 7-7:30am! The non-morning people probably still think that’s too early, but this felt incredible to me. The bags under my eyes started to diminish, I had more energy and just felt better overall each day – all because I wasn’t checking Instagram before bed.

Of course, some of these things changed when Molly passed away. Namely, I went back to not sleeping very well. All I did was hangout with (and worry about) Lexie. She had spent her entire life with Molly, and I didn’t want her to be alone. I also didn’t want to be alone, but didn’t want to leave the house without her. So, I decided to quit the detox early and downloaded Instagram on May 22nd. There was nothing impulsive about this. I just wanted to share the news (writing little obituaries for Molly and Lexie was part of my healing process) and share pictures and videos of my time with Lexie during her final days. <3

Other Observations I Made During My Social Media Detox

So, it wasn’t a perfect slow living experiment. I witnessed some positive differences in my behaviour and built upon a handful of existing friendships. Being offline also helped me stay more present and alert with the girls, during the time they needed me the most (and that’s time I could never have gotten back). But I did genuinely miss a few things about social media, during those 23 days (I only stayed off Facebook for the full 30). Specifically, there were two friends who were on big life-changing journeys, and I missed reading their updates on Instagram, and seeing pictures and videos from the beautiful places they were visiting.

There are a few other observations I made during my social media detox:

I tracked how many hours I was using my phone with the Moment app, and found I spent only 35% of my usual time on it without social media. It also (obviously) held a charge for a lot longer.

I can’t tell if it made me any more productive. I finished the second draft of The Year of Less, but I also quit freelancing (more on that later) and spent a lot of time doing nothing.

I did feel out of the loop on things, like current events. To be fair, I could have done a better job of checking the news on various sites. It just didn’t feel important compared to what was happening right in front of me at home. And I will never regret being uninformed for one month.

I found myself in a lot of conversations with friends who asked, “did you hear about X thing happening in Y city or to Z person?” When I said no and asked for more details, they couldn’t give me any. “That’s all I know,” they said. That’s all most of us know, if we don’t read past the headlines. And that’s what we do: think that what we can learn in 140 characters is enough to stay “in the loop”.

And one observation I’ve made since starting to use Instagram again is somewhat surprising: fewer people text me. I don’t know if it’s because they are now getting updates about me online, but I feel as though I’ve had fewer (and less meaningful) conversations since posting again. That’s something I need to think about more, which brings me to my final thoughts on this experiment.

How I Plan to Use Social Media in the Future

I had such a negative mindset about social media, when I started the detox, that I honestly thought I would be deleting some of my profiles by the end. Twitter had been fuelling my anxiety for weeks, as had Facebook the year before. I knew I wouldn’t delete Instagram, but I also knew the way I’d been using it had to change. I was so convinced I would be anti-social media, by the end of this, that I actually wrote an outline for the post where I would announce why I was walking away from it. Instead, I’ve gone back to my original thought: that we should simply learn how to use it more mindfully rather than ban ourselves completely.

When I looked back at that post I had drafted, I realized most of the reasons I was thinking about quitting social media were related to the fact that it wasn’t fun anymore. Some of that is because what we see online has been extremely negative (even downright mean) since the election. But it’s also because I had turned it all into business. I had never been someone who cared about the numbers, and then one day I started paying attention to them. I also started caring about the overall look/feel of my profiles. I thought that was what I was “supposed to do” in order to grow my business or to seem more legit (and imagine many bloggers and online business owners feel the same).

I’ve bucked most of the trends of what we’re “supposed to do” for years. I’ve never followed thousands of people in hopes they will follow me in return. I’ve always known I would rather have fewer followers who engage with my content rather than an inflated number that makes me seem more important. I also refuse to schedule content to publish around the clock. The business blogs tell me it will increase my pageviews, but I would rather have all my interactions occur in real-time. These are just a couple of the ways I’ve stuck to my morals while building my business. The experts might tell me I’m doing it wrong, but doing things their way isn’t fun. And if it’s not fun, what’s the point?

The most important lesson I learned during my social media detox is to make your own rules. Click To Tweet

I’m going to ignore every article about how to increase my engagement and achieve some meaningless goal, and go back to doing what I used to do: sharing my story and connecting with people. Social media doesn’t have to suck. For as much as I was hating on Twitter earlier this year, I am in control of how I use it – and all social media platforms, for that matter. I know it’s a powerful tool, but I don’t care how it affects my business. I want the power to be all about the connections we make. I love hanging out with you guys (and am using this penguin picture to show you how much I love it). I just want to do it my way. Here’s what that will look like:

Facebook: I’ll still use it to share all my new blog posts, and some other posts I think you would like.

Twitter: Ditto. But I’ll never schedule anything. I only want to post things when I know I’ll be available to have a conversation with you.

Instagram: I actually think I’m going to use this platform a little more than usual (namely, stories). However, I won’t be tagging profiles or using hashtags in posts. I don’t care how many people like my photos. I’ll share things because I want to, not because I want it to get any amount of validation.

Also, if the thought of using social media strategically makes you feel icky, go look at how some of the people you look up to in your industry use it. For me, that meant looking at the profiles of Cheryl Strayed and Elizabeth Gilbert and Glennon Doyle Melton. These women don’t have strategies. They all do things differently but have one thing in common: they post what comes from the heart.

Experiment #5: Slow Technology

All-in-all, while I didn’t fully complete the slow living experiment I had mapped out, I still feel incredibly happy with the lessons I took away from it.

do a 30-day social media detox (April 29th – May 28th) – 76% complete

figure out the role I want social media to play in my life – done!

check/reply to email less often (also experiment with not checking on my phone) – done!

figure out the role I want technology to play in my life (phone, computers, TV, etc.) – not really

read from a book every day – nope

As I am slowly easing myself back onto social media, there is one new habit I built this month that I hope I can hold onto forever: the feeling of not wanting to look at my phone very often. It’s hard to describe, but I genuinely feel an aversion to carrying my phone around with me and looking at it all the time. Yes, it can be a way to connect with people, but the connection you make when you sit across from someone and look them in the eyes is so much better. I vow to do a lot more of that in the future. <3

Books and Podcasts I Consumed This Month

Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig

The Magnolia Story by Chip and Johanna Gaines

At Home in the World by Tsh Oxenreider

Forward by Abby Wambach

The Slow Home Podcast with Brooke McAlary (loving the new meditation series!)

The Most Important Lesson I Learned During My Social Media Detox posted first on cashforcarsperthblog.blogspot.com

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The Most Important Lesson I Learned During My Social Media Detox

On the morning of April 29th, I deleted the Instagram app from my phone. It was the last social media app to go, as I had deactivated my Facebook account in 2016 and removed the Twitter app from my phone in March. I never thought I would delete the Instagram app, because of all the social media platforms out there, it had always been my favourite. But after yet another sleepless night in April, I could no longer hide from the truth: my anxiety had fueled a new level of addiction to my phone and I had to kick it.

I say I “had” to kick it because being addicted to looking at my phone and at social media does not align with my values. Over the past few years, I think you’ve all witnessed some of the transformations I’ve made in my life, including falling in love with the outdoors, and wanting to spend less time working and more time living. My phone is a great tool, in that it can help me navigate new territory and take pictures along the way. But it can’t help me do any of the other “living” I want to do; neither can social media.

Even though spending a lot of time looking at my phone or at social media doesn’t align with my values, I’m not immune to getting sucked in. Sure, I’m fairly self-aware, but I’m not a robot. I don’t operate on command, and I don’t automatically shutdown at certain times of the day. In April, I learned the exact opposite was true: when I was anxious, I looked at it more; went further down the rabbit hole; and felt worse about everything I found. On the morning of April 29th, I knew my online life needed a reset. It was time for a social media detox.

The Rules for My Social Media Detox

In the past, I will admit I have been hesitant to do any type of social media detox. My reasoning: I felt it was a necessary part of life, and that we should simply learn how to use it more mindfully rather than ban ourselves completely. (Yes, I’m aware of the irony that this thought came from the same girl who banned herself from shopping for two years. What can I say? Humans are complex! And I was a Communications major who, at one time, truly loved social media.) Still, once you see something, you can’t unsee it. So, when I finally saw how unhappy looking at social media made me, I knew I needed a break from it.

The rules for my social media detox were simple:

remove all social media apps from my phone

logout of all social media sites on my computer

use Buffer to schedule posts for my blog and Rockstar Finance

and don’t check any of my profiles!

The 30-day social media detox was intended to last from April 29th to May 28th. I was hesitant to walk away for such a long period of time, especially since I work for myself and have an “online presence” or whatever you want to call it. But like most of the other challenges I’ve set for myself, I knew this one was essential. In fact, tuning in to what my body and mind ask for would end up being just one of the many lessons I would take from this experience. But before I jump into the lessons, I should first tell you how the detox went, including some of the things I noticed about myself – and others – when I was offline.

How I Used Social Media Before the Detox

To have a better understanding of what this detox entailed, you should have a clear picture of exactly what type of social media user I was when I started. As I mentioned, I had already deleted the Facebook and Twitter apps from my phone. I deleted Facebook altogether in May 2016, but I still managed a few business pages and groups, which I did from my computer. And I checked Twitter regularly on my computer, as well, but didn’t feel the need to have 24/7 access to it from my phone. I deleted the Twitter app in March, and had enjoyed feeling slightly less connected without it.

The one app I still checked often was Instagram. I have always loved Instagram. It has allowed me to share pictures of the beautiful scenery I’m surrounded by every day, and helped me discover new places to explore. I have also met some of my closest friends on Instagram! The first friend I made when I moved to Port Moody and the first friend I’ve made since moving to Squamish are both people I had connected with on Instagram. Our conversations started online, but through the pictures and stories we shared, we knew we could probably take them offline too – and we did!

The day I decided to make my Instagram profile a “business profile” was the day I started to get a little less enjoyment from the app. Instead of simply posting a picture, I started to look at how that picture was performing. I also found myself having more conversations with friends about how to optimize posts in order to get more likes. It was all about the likes. What I wrote in the captions was honest, but the profiles I tagged and the hashtags I used were intentionally chosen in the hopes it would bring in more likes. And if I didn’t get enough engagement with a post, I genuinely felt like it wasn’t a good enough picture. It wasn’t fun anymore; it was business. The same became true with Twitter and my tweets.

Even though it felt like business, Instagram – like all social media platforms – was also a rabbit hole. It was too easy to see I was tagged in a post, check out the picture, read the comments, reply to the post, then visit the profile of the person who took the picture, check out a few more of their pictures, look at the list of profiles similar to theirs, check out their pictures, and so on and so forth. All of a sudden, 10 or 20 minutes had gone by, and I had forgotten why I’d opened up the app to begin with. That’s not to say I never found or connected with cool people that way, but this happened way more often than I liked.

I knew things were really bad when my insomnia on April 28th caused me to pick up my phone at 11pm, 12am, 12:30am, 12:40am, 12:50am 1am, 1:10am … until I finally passed out around 3:30am. The dogs woke me up at 6:30am, and I knew I couldn’t survive like that another day. My anxiety had fueled a new level of addiction to my phone and I had to kick it.

What My Life Was Like Without Social Media

I don’t think I’ll bore you with all the nitty gritty details of what each and every day looked like. (I did keep a journal and documented most of them, but it’s not exactly an exciting read!) Instead, I’ll share some of the things that stood out most to me. The first thing I noticed, of course, was how often I reached for my phone. As soon as I clicked the home button, however, I realized the only thing I could check was my email. Email is my least favourite communication tool, so I didn’t check it very often. I just spent ~14 days reaching for my phone, realizing I didn’t care if I had new email then putting it down again. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

The second thing I noticed, in those first two weeks, was how many times I thought about posting pictures of what I was doing. I would be out on a hike and still take pictures, but would think to myself, “If I don’t post this, did it really happen?” Obviously, laughter ensued. Instead of posting pictures, however, I sent them to the one or two people I really wanted to share them with. This meant a handful of friends got a lot more pictures delivered via iMessage, and I got to have a lot of meaningful conversations with them.

That brings me to my third point, which is that I strengthened a handful of friendships during my social media detox. Instead of simply double-tapping a picture on Instagram or replying to a tweet, we had real conversations – via text, the phone, Skype, etc. Two friends, in particular, quickly became the people I spoke to on an almost-daily basis. To counter that, unfortunately, I also found a few of my friendships quietened down or died off. I don’t know if that’s because I was offline, or because we have gone down different paths lately. But it did make me think about how the connections we “maintain” online aren’t always meant to last forever.

Finally, one of the best – and most unexpected – outcomes was that I slept better than I had in months. Since October, I had been in a new and terrible sleeping pattern. I was lucky if I could get six hours a night, and especially lucky if I could sleep in past 6am. Within the first few days of my social media detox, I was getting at least eight hours of sleep and was sleeping in until 7-7:30am! The non-morning people probably still think that’s too early, but this felt incredible to me. The bags under my eyes started to diminish, I had more energy and just felt better overall each day – all because I wasn’t checking Instagram before bed.

Of course, some of these things changed when Molly passed away. Namely, I went back to not sleeping very well. All I did was hangout with (and worry about) Lexie. She had spent her entire life with Molly, and I didn’t want her to be alone. I also didn’t want to be alone, but didn’t want to leave the house without her. So, I decided to quit the detox early and downloaded Instagram on May 22nd. There was nothing impulsive about this. I just wanted to share the news (writing little obituaries for Molly and Lexie was part of my healing process) and share pictures and videos of my time with Lexie during her final days. <3

Other Observations I Made During My Social Media Detox

So, it wasn’t a perfect slow living experiment. I witnessed some positive differences in my behaviour and built upon a handful of existing friendships. Being offline also helped me stay more present and alert with the girls, during the time they needed me the most (and that’s time I could never have gotten back). But I did genuinely miss a few things about social media, during those 23 days (I only stayed off Facebook for the full 30). Specifically, there were two friends who were on big life-changing journeys, and I missed reading their updates on Instagram, and seeing pictures and videos from the beautiful places they were visiting.

There are a few other observations I made during my social media detox:

I tracked how many hours I was using my phone with the Moment app, and found I spent only 35% of my usual time on it without social media. It also (obviously) held a charge for a lot longer.

I can’t tell if it made me any more productive. I finished the second draft of The Year of Less, but I also quit freelancing (more on that later) and spent a lot of time doing nothing.

I did feel out of the loop on things, like current events. To be fair, I could have done a better job of checking the news on various sites. It just didn’t feel important compared to what was happening right in front of me at home. And I will never regret being uninformed for one month.

I found myself in a lot of conversations with friends who asked, “did you hear about X thing happening in Y city or to Z person?” When I said no and asked for more details, they couldn’t give me any. “That’s all I know,” they said. That’s all most of us know, if we don’t read past the headlines. And that’s what we do: think that what we can learn in 140 characters is enough to stay “in the loop”.

And one observation I’ve made since starting to use Instagram again is somewhat surprising: fewer people text me. I don’t know if it’s because they are now getting updates about me online, but I feel as though I’ve had fewer (and less meaningful) conversations since posting again. That’s something I need to think about more, which brings me to my final thoughts on this experiment.

How I Plan to Use Social Media in the Future

I had such a negative mindset about social media, when I started the detox, that I honestly thought I would be deleting some of my profiles by the end. Twitter had been fuelling my anxiety for weeks, as had Facebook the year before. I knew I wouldn’t delete Instagram, but I also knew the way I’d been using it had to change. I was so convinced I would be anti-social media, by the end of this, that I actually wrote an outline for the post where I would announce why I was walking away from it. Instead, I’ve gone back to my original thought: that we should simply learn how to use it more mindfully rather than ban ourselves completely.

When I looked back at that post I had drafted, I realized most of the reasons I was thinking about quitting social media were related to the fact that it wasn’t fun anymore. Some of that is because what we see online has been extremely negative (even downright mean) since the election. But it’s also because I had turned it all into business. I had never been someone who cared about the numbers, and then one day I started paying attention to them. I also started caring about the overall look/feel of my profiles. I thought that was what I was “supposed to do” in order to grow my business or to seem more legit (and imagine many bloggers and online business owners feel the same).

I’ve bucked most of the trends of what we’re “supposed to do” for years. I’ve never followed thousands of people in hopes they will follow me in return. I’ve always known I would rather have fewer followers who engage with my content rather than an inflated number that makes me seem more important. I also refuse to schedule content to publish around the clock. The business blogs tell me it will increase my pageviews, but I would rather have all my interactions occur in real-time. These are just a couple of the ways I’ve stuck to my morals while building my business. The experts might tell me I’m doing it wrong, but doing things their way isn’t fun. And if it’s not fun, what’s the point?

The most important lesson I learned during my social media detox is to make your own rules. Click To Tweet

I’m going to ignore every article about how to increase my engagement and achieve some meaningless goal, and go back to doing what I used to do: sharing my story and connecting with people. Social media doesn’t have to suck. For as much as I was hating on Twitter earlier this year, I am in control of how I use it – and all social media platforms, for that matter. I know it’s a powerful tool, but I don’t care how it affects my business. I want the power to be all about the connections we make. I love hanging out with you guys (and am using this penguin picture to show you how much I love it). I just want to do it my way. Here’s what that will look like:

Facebook: I’ll still use it to share all my new blog posts, and some other posts I think you would like.

Twitter: Ditto. But I’ll never schedule anything. I only want to post things when I know I’ll be available to have a conversation with you.

Instagram: I actually think I’m going to use this platform a little more than usual (namely, stories). However, I won’t be tagging profiles or using hashtags in posts. I don’t care how many people like my photos. I’ll share things because I want to, not because I want it to get any amount of validation.

Also, if the thought of using social media strategically makes you feel icky, go look at how some of the people you look up to in your industry use it. For me, that meant looking at the profiles of Cheryl Strayed and Elizabeth Gilbert and Glennon Doyle Melton. These women don’t have strategies. They all do things differently but have one thing in common: they post what comes from the heart.

Experiment #5: Slow Technology

All-in-all, while I didn’t fully complete the slow living experiment I had mapped out, I still feel incredibly happy with the lessons I took away from it.

do a 30-day social media detox (April 29th – May 28th) – 76% complete

figure out the role I want social media to play in my life – done!

check/reply to email less often (also experiment with not checking on my phone) – done!

figure out the role I want technology to play in my life (phone, computers, TV, etc.) – not really

read from a book every day – nope

As I am slowly easing myself back onto social media, there is one new habit I built this month that I hope I can hold onto forever: the feeling of not wanting to look at my phone very often. It’s hard to describe, but I genuinely feel an aversion to carrying my phone around with me and looking at it all the time. Yes, it can be a way to connect with people, but the connection you make when you sit across from someone and look them in the eyes is so much better. I vow to do a lot more of that in the future. <3

Books and Podcasts I Consumed This Month

Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig

The Magnolia Story by Chip and Johanna Gaines

At Home in the World by Tsh Oxenreider

Forward by Abby Wambach

The Slow Home Podcast with Brooke McAlary (loving the new meditation series!)

The Most Important Lesson I Learned During My Social Media Detox posted first on http://ift.tt/2lnwIdQ