Social Sabbatical: Day 3
Emotionally
Things are evening out, thankfully. I’m still feeling a tad lonely but FOMO is very much happening. I’m totally missing out on everyone’s cool work, life, and experiences! GAH. On the other hand, I didn’t struggle with feeling incapable. In fact I made something I quite proud of, but more of that during the productivity segment. Lastly, I have more peace. I’m not comparing myself to what others are creating, or what they’re doing — cause I simply don’t know. Without social, I’m about to put my head down and create.
Relationally
I was able to chat on the phone and not be distracted during it. This sounds horrible, and hopefully I’m not the only one, but during phone calls I would check my social feeds. When I wasn’t working, I deemed, I was on a break. I always checked social on all my 1 million breaks. So when a friend called my mind would label it “Break!” and I’d instinctively open Twitter or Instagram. As you can imagine this habit truncated the depth of the conversations. It’s enlightening to experience a conversation not broken by negative habits.
Mentally
Focus! Glorious all-hands-on-deck, focus. I haven’t experienced this in a hot minute. When I would pray, or do devotions, my mind would skip and jump from random thing to not-so-random things. And this happened during work too. I was having a hard time strategizing, ideating, or problem solving cause I was mentally jump from the latest “design twitter” rant, cool opportunity someone has, and drool worthy art I’ve seen. Focus eluded me. This started to break yesterday. I noticed it first during prayer time and devotional. It continued well into work.
Productivity
Just like the day before, I was able to make time for a personal conversation without overall impact on my to-do list. I also didn’t feel pressure to cut off the conversation because of my workload. What a welcomed change of pace!
And that to-do list? I was able to get way more done. Like double the amount. That is impressive, but the thing I find more mind-blowing is the quality. Normally I would be under the gun to create because I chewed up lots of time scrolling feeds. While on this sabbatical, not splitting my focus and disrupting progress, I was able to explore and creatively solve problems I wouldn’t have time for before. I could really get use to this?
Game Plan
I shouldn’t be surprised, but I adore how this sabbatical is going. It’s liberating, peaceful, and productive. However, I am a bit concerned going back to social after the New Year.
Currently I’m still on Dribbble, as all my leads come through there. But how will not being on Twitter or Instagram impact lead generation? I don’t know. I guess this is more a marketing question than a social one. I have time (and now, the focus) to marinate on the solution.
