And that's totally OK.

In "It's Business Time" (the 6-month intensive business-development program I'm in) we're at the point where we're defining what we want to DO. As in, for money. For reals. With a website and everything. And for me it's designing logos, and doing social media consultations. And writing, my own blog and my own writing.

And oh my, how the Vampire Voices rise up at that!!

They say, "But! You kill your Facebook news feed! And you work to spend less time on social media, not more! So... why would anyone pay you real money to tell them what to do with their social media?"

(Vampire Voices are assholes, by the way. The way to deal with them is to say, "Well, thanks for the feedback, but I got this.")

Later on down the road as I'm writing my sales pages, I'll get into things like how I still get lots of Likes and followers, and how my content still gets shared. And I'll get into what I do personally, to stay enough "in the loop" as I need to be, but also to take nice long breaks from what feels, often, like overstimulation. And I'll talk about my thirteen years of experience blogging and sharing things online, which is a rich catalog of memories, attempts, fails and successes.

But for now, on a Friday afternoon, let me just tell you this: whatever your personal equivalent is of my fear of "But I can't be a social media consultant if I keep my news feed killed!", it's not true. You get to flip the script. You get to create what you want, from boundaries to blog posts, to businesses.

xoxo and have a great weekend!!

Leah

Photo at top of this post is from my copy of the Get To Work Book.

I'm in week seven now of "It's Business Time." ("It's Business Time" is the group coaching program I crowdfunded in order to take, a month and a half ago. My thoughts on week one of the program are here.)

Week seven! That's crazy. Where does the time go?!

Anyway, today is Friday and every Friday the group of us meet on Uber Conference and talk for an hour. In our call today, my question for the coaches was, "I want to help people with their social media, as part of my business, but I don't want to be a social media expert who has no life outside of social media. I want balance. Can that exist?"

One of the coaches, the rad Tiffany Han, replied by challenging me to find out for myself. She said, "Try only going on social media for twenty minutes a day, for the next two weeks, and see if you're as effective on it as before."

"Does that include writing blog posts, or checking email?" I said.

"No, just the platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest."

I tried to bargain, saying, "Well, how about an hour a day?"

"Nope." Tiffany was firm. "Twenty minutes."

"Fine, fine!" I said, laughing. "I accept!"

And to be honest, as much as it scares me, the idea also excites me. I've gone off social media other times, for various lengths of time. And I've tried to just be conscious of my use of it, and limit that use. But I've never done it exactly like this before.

The idea is scary, because although I hope for balance, I definitely fear that in order to use social media for business, you need to be on it all the time, that you need to be available to people all the time.

But what if that's not true?

And what if I can learn methods for balance, and help other people with this 'pain point'?

We'll see. Twenty minutes a day, here goes!