cc licensed flickr photo shared by tnarik
The unthinkable finally happened. I’ve been suffering from major league social media burn-out for nearly a fortnight and it’s showing no signs of disappearing any time soon. So rather than post snippy, whinging posts about things that irritate me – which I’ve been inspired to do on several occasions lately – I’m going to take a bit of a break.
Twitter has begun to bore me; I can’t write a blog post to save my life; my RSS subscriptions are regularly cleared without being read; and the idea of recording a screencast tutorial or application walk-through just isn’t the slightest bit inspiring. Likewise the passionate interest in online learning – both theory and practice – I’d maintained day and night, seven days a week including holidays for I don’t know how long, has completely vanished. Poof!
This is by no means my curtain call. I’m not hanging up the blog, the Tweets, videos or the like. I’ve just found over time that the well will occasionally dry up – as if I’ve over-fished the stream – and it’s time to dive into other areas to allow the passion and enthusiasm to slowly replenish. A break is a very positive thing. Not the end of something; just the beginning of something else.
Perhaps I’ll play guitar again, or read. I’m not sure just yet. But I’ll definitely be back.
Mike,
I hear you on all counts with this. The whole process saps your soul after a while, and a nice intermission is extremely important. I also feel the burn out to some great degreee these days, so I stand with you in exhausted solidarity
Enjoy yourself free from the fetters of the online prison.
I know how you feel – even from the edges of the blogosphere!
It's funny, every time I go through this experience and say “Man I need a break – this time I mean it!” I make it a day or two and that's it. It's almost as if acknowledging that I'm burned out is the key – and then saying it aloud. After that I'm almost immediately open to all sorts of blogging possibilities again.