Whenever I speak to people who are new to social media, they all give the same response: it’s so overwhelming!

I agree.

Usually, I recommend trying one thing and starting from there. Start with a blog, start with Facebook, start podcasting, etc. Get used to that format and gradually learn about the others while building your community. People like to connect on more than one medium. They’ll follow you across multiple outlets.

But keeping up can be hard. Even for those who live and die by social media. That’s why this blog was neglected for so long.

Last night, I took a few hours to reclaim my social media life. I declared email bankruptcy, set up labels in gmail to better organize my messages and cleared out my feeds in Netvibes. I really didn’t need to subcribe to all 15 feeds that The Hill offers, especially now that I live in TN. Do I really care about the comings and goings of K Street?

FYI: I’m a big fan of netvibes because you can group feeds according to subject and it shows modules of the latest entries in each feed.

The important lesson here is that it’s ok to feel overwhelmed or not be up on the latest gadget. The techies who do stay up on those are glued to their iPhones. You simply can’t keep up with the deluge of information and still accomplish your job or enjoy your life.

A few helpful tips:
1. Set up a reader to organize your regular reads.
2. Discriminate. You don’t have to follow everyone.
3. If you aren’t regularly reading a blog, don’t feel bad about deleting them.
4. Delete people from Facebook or Twitter who you don’t know or really care about.
5. Don’t feel bad about declaring RSS or email bankruptcy. It happens to the best of us.
6. Find one area that you care about and focus on that information.
7. Spend one day a week away from email or your computer.

Recently, I decided to start a business based around a craft that I make for fun. (More to come later). I’m not sure if it will ever take off, but stepping away from the computer and using a different part of my brain has reinvigorated my passion for this field. It also provides balance. Because I have projects that are done offline, I occasionally have to put the laptop down.

As the Greeks said, “All things in moderation.”

This entry was posted on Friday, January 23rd, 2009 at 5:17 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.