Fade Away and Radiate

Been feeling overloaded lately. Also feeling something of a sense of ennui with social media. Sometimes it’s good, and sometimes I just see things in my various feeds that annoy me. Sometimes I feel like it’s not fun anymore, but instead is merely a pointless distraction.

Time for a break.

(I was going to do this starting in November, but fuck it - am starting today.)

So, here’s what I’m going to stop checking and posting to:

• @jenvetterli
• @jenvetterlicom
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Yammer (which is an internal work account that I cross-post to from @jenvetterlicom, but occasionally interact with separately)
• Blip.fm (which feeds into @jenvetterli)
• FourSquare
• various Tumblr and Flickr accounts that haven’t seen much activity anyway
• somehow feel like I’m forgetting other accounts - clearly they’re not important

Accounts that I will keep checking and posting to, albeit not so much (in all likelihood):

• @ZenSkyMind
• TripIt (only if I actually travel somewhere; in which case, my updates will post to both Facebook and LinkedIn *shrug*)
• Diigo, which cross-posts to my work Delicious account
• personal Delicious account (not used much, but just in case…)
• my company’s Jive implementation (which is for work, of course)

So, thanks for following. I plan to start up again in 2012. Maybe I’ll see you then.

(Pic is courtesy of my brother, who hasn’t updated his Flickr account since 2010.)

Traveling with other people can be tricky. First, just trying to coordinate schedules to go somewhere can be challenging. Then, you might discover new and interesting personality quirks in people you thought you’d known for a while. Lastly, after being with the same people for days - if not weeks - on end, you might all wind up getting on each others nerves a bit.

It’s tempting to not bother and just go by yourself - and travelling solo can be great - but at the same time, it’s nice to have other people you know around to share experiences with you. Having spent a few days hanging out with friends in Amsterdam, here are some things I learned that worked well for us, and might just work for others too:

1) No whining. Despite the fact that vacations are supposed to be fun, they can also be a lot of work. The jetlag, the unfamiliar languages and customs, the strange surroundings - it can be pretty stressful. Not to mention that things often can - and will - go wrong and throw your carefully honed plans (if you made any) into disarray. Whatever happens, try to recalibrate gracefully, make the best of things, and learn to enjoy the unexpected. Your companions will thank you and you’ll have a much better trip as well.

2) No picky eaters. Why would you travel halfway around the world just to eat the same crappy fast food that you can get at home? Try something new - really, it won’t kill you. (Unless you have a food allergy - in which case, I do understand and sympathize.) If all you want to do is eat at McDonalds, I’m happy to leave you there. Note that of the three friends I was with, one is vegetarian, one has a dairy allergy, and one has an egg allergy, yet we all managed to reach consensus on places to eat, enjoyed some new foods, and had a great time.

3) Be punctual. Jetlag can be brutal and make it hard to get up on time, or maybe in an unfamiliar city you might not know how long it takes to reach a particular meeting place, but overall, do try to be reasonably on time if you’ve agreed to meet your companions somewhere. Everyone has better things to do - like eating or sightseeing - than hanging around for 45 minutes waiting for you to show up.

4) Be prepared to go it alone occasionally. Not everyone likes to do the same things or see the same things on a trip. If you can all agree to disagree once in a while, and split up to do what you want, everyone will have more fun and you can compare notes and swap stories when you do meet up again.

So, props to my peeps for being such swell travelling companions and making a great trip that much better - it was a blast :)

Addendum: Just in case it wasn’t clear from the above, none of my friends (and hopefully not me either) were guilty of any of the gaffes noted above.  Having been thinking about things, I really appreciate that we were all able to get along and have a good time on this trip.

So, it was not quite two years ago that I decided to set up a second Twitter account, @jenvetterlicom, and move all my “work”-related Tweets on User Experience, Information Architecture, Interaction Design, etc. there from my main Twitter account @jenvetterli.

It seemed to be needed, since I was posting on a wide variety of topics, including a lot of food posts (not to mention a lot of venting and whining), and I figured that many people who were following me for UX/IA/IxD posts weren’t necessarily interested in hearing about what I had for lunch (or whining), and vice versa. 

I think it’s worked out pretty well, albeit with the occasional hiccup where I’ve accidentally posted to the wrong account (fortunately, it’s only happened twice).  I do occasionally cross-post, and follow some Tweeps on both accounts, but overall the two accounts are fairly separate.

Meanwhile, things have continued to evolve with the @jenvetterli account, and I feel that it’s time to do another split.  So, I’m moving all my Buddhist-related Tweets to a new Twitter account, @ZenSkyMind, thus sparing many Tweeps from my #OMCru check-ins, #Twangha shout-outs, Zen quotes, and the like…

Clearly, I’m still all one person.  I’m leaving all three accounts open, and people can follow on whichever ones they like.  (Or none.)  But hopefully this cuts down on a lot of “noise” for some of my Tweeps.

Thanks for following…

You know how the saying goes…

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

Which is fine.  For a while.  But what if you keep getting lemons, over and over?

Maybe - just maybe - the problem is that you’re sitting under a lemon tree.

In which case you either learn to like lemons a lot, or you find a new tree to sit under.

Have you had enough lemonade yet?

(Pic is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)

I’ve been trying to get into the habit of going to the library on weekends to get some reading done, and some writing done.  So far, so good - even if the results haven’t been particularly outstanding, at least I’ve been showing up and accomplishing something.  That’s half the battle.

Why am I doing this?

In late July, I’d made up a list of 14 books I wanted to read before the end of the year.  Many of the books are ones that I started to read, but never got around to finishing.  Then, things kind of went sideways, and I didn’t pick up a single book for months.  So now, I’ve been trying to make a dent in the list, although I won’t get through everything by year-end.

It was also one of my stated goals from the beginning of the year that I wanted to write more.  It’s been happening on and off through the year, but I need to make it more of a regular habit, which means scheduling time to do it.

I still haven’t quite settled on one particular library to go to.  I’ve been hitting the Toronto Reference Library, which is fairly decent - it’s not too far from where I live, near to a couple places that I like for brunch, and has free wifi.  It’s a bit of a challenge finding a seat, since so many people come here, but I’ve been able to get one without too much difficulty.  There are other people here who tend to chat with each other, or on cell phones, and that’s a bit of a nuisance, but overall it’s fine.

I also tried the public library down near College and Spadina last Sunday afternoon.  The location works, since I’m in that area on Sundays anyway, and there’s free wifi there as well.  Unfortunately, the disturbance factor is also greater than at the Reference Library - it wasn’t entirely insurmountable last week, so I’ll try it again tomorrow, but I’m not entirely sure if I’m going to make it a habit of going there.

I’ll probably try some other locations as well.  I used to go to Robarts on the UofT campus a fair bit (even after I graduated from UofT), and could certainly do that again.  Need to figure out where else.  But, regardless of the location, I just need to get out there and do it, even it’s just a couple hours each on Saturday and Sunday.

Onward and upward…

BTW, this is actually the first time that I’m using my wireless keyboard with my iPad.  (I’d meant to take it with me when I went to London and Paris, but forgot to put it in my carry-on.)  Am liking it, although the keys are just a smidge noisy when I type, especially here in the library.

So, I managed to stay away from Twitter for an entire month. Rather more accurately, I managed to stay away from tweeting for an entire month, as I’ve still been following what other people are doing.

I’ve found that the urge both for posting to Twitter and for trying to keep up with other people’s tweets does go down over time. This is probably a good thing.

Anyway, I guess I’m back. Going to try and do things a bit differently this time. Fewer rapid-fire bursts of reflexive 140-character mind-vomits. More slightly longer posts that make use of this sadly neglected Tumblr account.

Different is good. We’ll see how it goes.

So, I’ve Twittered about the fact that I keep meaning to post something online, and yet I never do. This is disappointing. One of the reasons why I started up this particular Tumblr account (as opposed to a couple other blogs that I’ve also started) was to have a no-pressure site where I could move beyond simple 140-character ciphers and get back into the habit of publishing longer snippets of writing.

I have a love-hate relationship with the written word. Usually, writing comes to me fairly naturally. Whereas I struggle to express myself verbally, committing words to the page (either paper or electronic) comes to me much more easily. There’s a certain rush that comes from getting the words down “just so” that’s equally joyful, compelling, and addictive.

But then there are those times when the words don’t come out, and it’s pure torture. I’ve likened writing on more than one occasion to being akin to pulling a beach towel out through one’s nostrils. It’s horrific - painful, repulsive, and messy.

So, often I have a great idea for a piece of writing and get off to a good start, but then there’s a bump and things snarl and crash.  [Kind of like this piece, which I’ve had sitting in my Drafts folder for a while.]  It’s easy to give up and walk away.

Keeping a journal helps.  There’s no pressure, and it doesn’t seem to matter as much if I start out writing something “good”, only to lose the plot.  Conversely, there have been times that I’ve started out writing basic crap but then it suddenly gels and an idea that I didn’t have when I started magically appears.

Anyway, I’m going to dust off this account and try again.  And hopefully get the other ones going again as well.

Onward and upward…

(Photo is courtesy of Image*After.)

Day 2 of my vacation, and I’ve decided that I’m not going to do anything work-related.  Which seems like a no-brainer, but even though I’m not at the office doing my job, extricating myself from work isn’t quite so simple.

So, I’ve decided:

• No reading work-related books.
• No attending work-related events.
• No work-related Twittering, or following my work Twitter-stream.
• No “catching up” on work-related blogs (which really means frantically bookmarking a whackload of stuff on Delicious and copying it into my Evernote account for “later”).

Off. Everything off. Goddamit.

It’s a little scary, to be honest, because there is still that fear: “what if I miss something?”

But, you know what? I won’t miss anything. Not really. If something comes out in the next 12 days that is really going to be that important or useful, it should still be there when I get back.

Wish me luck.

(Image is courtesy of Gapingvoid.)