Our relationship with time is funny:
It's one of the few things we humans have as a constant in our lives, yet there never seems to be enough of it.
So when embarking on our creative endeavors, we find ourselves sacrificing important aspects of our lives in hopes of salvaging and nurturing another.
In many cases for us creatives, it's finding that balance between your work and social media. At first, it seems like a balancing act that is meant to set you up for failure if you're a one-person team.
After a few years of stumbling around, rapid fire posting, having my pages decay into content wastelands, and have had many failed projects with ideas laid to waste, I've learned some things to help with keeping everything in check.
Granted, while I'm no social media guru, I'm in no way an influencer, nor am I an award winning author of anything; I do work a full-time job, run a weekly podcast, am currently producing a limited comic series, write short stories to be submitted for publication, am a dungeon master for a weekly game, have a healthy social life, and maintain a daily word count all while maintaining a healthy social media prescence.
Now is my track record perfect?
F*ck No.
Here's my instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hariotezawa/
You can see the gaps in my post times even though I try to post daily.
Here's my twitter: https://twitter.com/HarioTezawa
You can see how sporadic and unfocused it is, and how neglected it can become.
Here's why I'm still writing this though: Both accounts have been ironically far more consistent in posts and updates now while I juggle many projects, than back when I was doing very few.
Which is why the first and foremost thing I feel anyone, especially creatives, need to realize is this.
You Waste Far More Time Than You Realize. Seriously. Like A Lot.
If you are anything like me, than you are lazy, and you love to procrastinate, and sleep is the greatest thing the universe has allowed us to do. I still struggle with these horrific aspects of myself, but back when I first decided that I wanted to live off my writing, it was just downright offensive how much time I spent doing nothing:
- I would just scroll up and down my instagram and facebook pages without purpose
- I would watch the same youtube videos over, and over, and over again.
- I would spend copious amounts of continuous hours just playing overwatch; sinking in 12 hour blocks of my day trying to breach gold (which was the worst part: I wasn't even good at the game)
Leisure time is important; I will never dispute that; but the thing about effective leisure time is that it is earned.
The difference between winding down and being lazy is when you are become exhausted from spending immense mental energy scrolling the netflix menu, trying to figure out what you want to watch, you have reached peak indolence.
So once you've accepted that you may be able to utilize your time a bit more efficiently, the next step is to—
Make a Goddamn Schedule (Along With Daily Checklists)
Listen, I understand that we have condemned and forwent the 9-5 lifestyle in favor of the bohemian modus vivendi, but there still needs to be some order and structure to make sense of our artistic chaos in order to navigate through it.
I use Calenders 5 (7.99) and Wunderlist (Free w/ optional Membership) #notsponsored.
The best 8 dollars and storage data you will ever invest in.
Even if you don't want to spend money, every phone has a notes and a calendar app: use it.
I meandered through my teenage years, living day to day, 'in the moment', banking on everything working out in the end.
That might work for the C- student in high school.
That might work for the unambitious college kid too.
It will not work for someone trying to make their art into a sustainable career.
Trust me, I tried.
When I started developing the patience and focus needed to work on the projects I needed to get done with consistency, I began tackling more and more responsibilities until I had of laundry list of things that needed to get done. The amassing amount of tasks soon became too much to handle for my ambition and passion alone, and my mind shut down. It couldn't decide between grocery shopping and sending out that email that should have been handled yesterweek, and lazyness began to fester once more, albeit in a different uniform: choice paralysis.
Having large chunks of work to complete with no real plan of attack will lead into long stretches of unintended procrastination. It can also lead to you barreling into a particular chunk of work, make considerable progress, only to realize far too late that you could have spent a bit of that time tackling something else that also needed to be completed.
In the beginning, when you are building work ethic, this blind throw approach to your day is fine -- you are still trying to establish the necessary discipline -- but you are going to reach a stage where you need to start allocating hours to things other than the work itself i.e., marketing, networking, social media, etc. It is here that creating a work schedule with organized lists becomes paramount.
You may thinking, "X gets X amount of work done, and they don't schedule!"
Maybe, but you are not them, and the method is clearly not working for you.
Do an honest assessment of your work output every day, and then schedule everything out, and then take the extra step and create daily checklists for you to complete. Each little ding or strike will release endorphins in your brain that will turn this action into habit. It will put everything into perspective because your mind will see defined blocks of actual data to process, instead of a daunting assumption of how it thinks it is, and should be, managing everything.
Our imagination can be crippling to our productivity because it amplifies our worries, exaggerates our capabilities, and our mind has a fascinating way of avoiding change and self-improvement.
Once everything is down on paper, you'll be able to better manage everything, including your social media game.
Which leads to my final point:
Stop Screaming at People. Give Them Value.
Social Media isn't a Billboard. It's a Bridge.
One thing I hated about social media in the beginning was that I felt like an empty voice that was just screeching out into the vast void. I felt unheard. I felt like I was the only one doing the wrong thing, and the only one who didn't get invited to the digital networking club. It was a big factor in why I wasn't so enthusiastic about posting everyday: so I stopped. I only posted during those convenient pockets of inspiration where the moon lined up, and I remembered my Instagram password.
Stop approaching your platforms like this.
Social media, at our level, isn't meant to be our main promotion platform -- not yet at least -- no, it's that revolutionary tool made effective by our generation to help meet and support one another, regardless of where you're from.
Take this time to find another going through the same pit of uncertainty you yourself are going through, and assure them that they're not alone by sharing or liking their work.
I honestly cannot tell you how many superb individuals I have had the great fortune of meeting. How many inspiring artists I've discovered and followed by searching #art on Instagram.
Stop just logging on when you're bored and scroll with no intent. Go search and look for a conversation to join. Like every tweet on your feed. Comment on discussions. Leave a damn LOL. Give value to someone, genuinely, and I promise, the digital world will give back to you so much more than just sharing your latest post then exiting the app. It will make using the apps feel more fun and fulfilling, thus making it much easier into incorporating it into your regular routine.
Other things you can do to make social media a bit more manageable:
Find ways to make it enjoyable for you. I've recently incorporated posting my word count onto insta. It keeps me accountable, and will show me how fall I've come (or fallen) later down the road.
Don't try and work on each and everyone. Play it smart. I am primarily on Instagram, and then on Twitter for they utilize my skills and strengths best. I could open a LinkedIn, and work more on my Facebook and Tumblr, but that's probably not the wisest.
Now, if you're looking for some dope people to connect with who are great to talk to and are crazy talented, then I recommend:
@MariMontoya:
You can find her webcomic, ' Solstice', here: https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/solstice/list?title_no=214499
Twitter: https://twitter.com/marimontoya226
@TheFalseVyper:
Those Called Wolf, a riveting drama that you can get lost in here: https://tapas.io/episode/835828
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheFalseVyper
Insta: https://www.instagram.com/thefalsevyper/
@Penni:
One of the most prolific writers I know of on the platform, and you can read of of her many stories here: https://tapas.io/PenniWrites
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/PenniWriting
@vworksart
Some of the coolest art I've seen. Love the story & character designs:
Insta:
