So I have a problem with social media, and the general keeping up on updates and other things that I feel are a waste of time when there are more important things to do. Like this post for example - it's just a drop in the ocean when you consider all of the thousands of lines of ramblings that are posted online every second, but even I can recognise that they are important. Perhaps not on their own, but combined with a healthy twitter stream, regular video content posted online and interacting with vimeo users it helps build an image of "this guy cares about what he's doing and wants to tell you all about it".
Not that my reluctance to spend time on twitter means that I don't care about what I'm doing, on the contrary I very much DO care about what I'm doing, it's just that when I'm doing things like that it feels like a big waste of time, and I'd rather be doing the work that I care about doing (namely animating or designing). So I've decided to devise a new system.
In the past when I've had a job on, I'll just forget about everything else apart from that job. In a way, that's a good thing. It means when I'm working for somebody for a day rate, that's all I'm doing. I'll get up in the morning, work, take a small lunch break, work, then when I've worked my 8 hours I'll stop and find something else to do in order to relax. The problem comes when I get a 6 week booking, which is then followed up with a 4 week booking, then I might get another 6 week booking and before I know it several months have passed without even thinking about twitter or vimeo and all my down-time focus is on accounts or backing-up. In reality, If I just earmarked a few hours a week to online promotion stuff, my twitter feed would look much happier.
So my new system will consist of "Online-Bullshit-Credits(TM)", or "OBCs". Every week I'll have a number of credits to use up on "Online-Bullshit-Activities(TM)", or "OBAs" - I'll have to iron out the exact amount I need to do, but the goal is to spend at least 1 hour of every day on OBAs whilst not on a job, and 30 minutes of every day on OBAs whilst I am on a job. These will be spread out over a week, so in theory if I have a lot on in the daytimes and evenings of a week, I could just lump all of my OBCs into a 3.5 hour slot on Saturday morning. While this wouldn't be ideal, it would encourage me to squeeze some OBAs into the evenings when I can, 30 minutes isn't really that much and I could easily do this instead of jumping into a quick session of Rocket League when I've finished my work for the day.
I'm going to see how it goes, there will be a tricky balancing act between twitter, vimeo, blog posts and emails - something will count as an Online-Bullshit-Activity(TM) as long as I'm interacting with the outside world. Day to day activities will not count (such as client communication for jobs and bookings), but emails to people out of the blue that I struggle to get motivation for - perhaps old colleagues or networking opportunities will.
Anyway, this post has filled about 20 minutes of today's OBA, so I'm happy. Now I'm going to share some cat gifs on twitter.