What I’m Doing Now: Why I’m off Social Media.

You may
have noticed that I’ve deleted my Twitter and Facebook accounts and I’m no
longer updating my blog or Instagram. 

Recently, I read Cal Newport’s Deep Work and So Good They Can’t Ignore You, and I realized that social media and
my blog does not really help me work on anything that I value. If anything, they take me away from those things.

Here’s what I’m
working on right now:

1. Being a great dad and husband is of utmost importance as we make this transition to life in Bloomington, Indiana, which leads me to: 
2. Getting a new day job that helps support my family’s transition, as well as helps me develop new skills as someone who cares about working with people.
3. This month, for NaNoWriMo, I’m working on the third and final rewrite
       of my young adult novel The Human Library. Next month, I’m finishing my third novel. I have about four and half chapters to finish. In 2018, I’m going to write short stories and submit them and save money to join Comics Experience to gain feedback in my deliberate practice of becoming a comics writer while developing two new comics projects.
4. I’m trying to exercise—running or doing some Nicky Holender videos—at least four times a week because being physically healthy is good for my mental health. I’m pretty happy with the progress on this right now, as I’m running at least three times a week and averaging three miles a run before walking. It’s a great use of practical meditation. 

I came
to this realization while reading Newport: What I care about most is being a
great dad, husband, having a job that allows me to develop new skills, have some control in my daily life, and creates a value of competency that allows me to lead a life I care about. Which means being a family man, and writing novels and comic books. But I came up with an uber-ideology for what I’m deeply focused on right now:

The only
thing Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc needs to know about me is that my family is the most important thing in the world and
I write books and comic books and none of those social media tools helps me do those
things.  

So that’s
where I am right now. Will it change in the future? Sure, people’s beliefs
change all the time—even mine—but for right now I need to train myself to focus
deeply on the above four things, and then I’ll use whatever tool that I see is the most helpful in achieving these primary focus  areas. Mostly, I think I’ll go back to my life before I even had AOL–using the phone and email. 

Thanks for reading. 

*Post inspired by Derek Sivers.