30-day challenge update

Speaking of 30-day challenges!

I'm on my last week of working outside the home every day. It's been a good exercise. There were definitely times I wanted to stay home and curl up in a ball (anxiety and depression will do that to you), but I made myself get out and work elsewhere pretty much every weekday.

I always felt more accomplished after going somewhere else and setting up shop (even if it was just down the street to Leslie's house). There's something about the determination to go and be and use my time (and battery life) wisely.

My hope is that I'll keep up the habit most days, if not every day. Especially now that I know that it keeps me productive when I would otherwise dissolve into a nap and/or Doctor Who reruns.

I'm taking 30-day challenge suggestions now for the next month, although I think that my next couple are going to be writing related. I have a manuscript I want to finish before October 31 and then it will be time for NaNoWriMo, my favorite 30-day challenge ever!

Thirty-day Challenge update

My current thirty-day challenge is going pretty well. I spent all last week working at Leslie's house, keeping her kitties company while she was gone... that was perhaps a little lazy, but it did keep me out of the house for more than 2 hours at a time, and I did get a fair amount of work done in the process, so I'm going to call it an overall win.

It's interesting that it was easier for me to be creative about my work spots when I didn't have a car... weird, I guess. But hey, I'm weird.

It's September now, and I'm super excited because I just found out I'll be co-ML (Municipal Liaison) for my region for NaNoWriMo in November. I seriously love NaNo. I was scared of it at first, because I wasn't sure I could write 50,000 words in 30 days. But, I think that's the point. You're supposed to push yourself ... and no one is going to point and laugh at you if you don't reach the goal. But you might surprise yourself.

The first year of NaNo I wrote 30,000 words. I've won it twice since then. And a couple of times in between I fell short. But that's ok! The point is to get out there and give it your best shot.

And now, this year, I get to be a cheerleader for others who are writing, too! I can't wait!

First week of a new challenge

Well, the first week was last week. This is just a recap at the start of week two. Hope you stick with me.

Ok, but before I dive into my 30-day challenge, I have to just say how much I love it that when I google "You should be writing" there's a whole CATEGORY of Benedict Cumberbatch memes. Seriously? I love it so much. Sherlock or no Sherlock, those eyes say "get writing" and I can't refuse them!

My first week of challenging myself to work outside my home every day was not without its obstacles. I had the wrong time for buses and operating hours of businesses... and on the day when I had a car to drive, I had to figure out how to move it and not lose my seat in the cafe where I was working. (This involved talking to actual people that were sitting around me... eek).

But, I felt productive and ... almost like I was living some kind of a scene from a movie. I think I've imagined myself working in crunchy cafes and at the library... it seems very writer-ly.

Now we're on to week two, and I think I have it planned out... but I'm not sure entirely. I will likely revisit a few places, perhaps try a couple new ones... we'll see. Top of my list to return to: Cloud Forest Cafe, Crepeville, and the library (not to mention Leslie's)... which leaves only one place that I'm going to try really hard NOT to go back to... Panera. I really don't like Panera. I only ended up there because I mixed up schedules last week and got to the library three hours before it opened.

I just need to get myself together and get out there. I can do this. It's not scary... well, maybe a little still... but... it's getting better.

Day 30: 30-day #noFacebook challenge - Time to move on

Today's the last day of my 30-day #noFacebook challenge, and I can safely say that my habits have been altered. I was sufficiently able to curb my Facebook use, and I don't think I'll ever return to the way things were before. I feel so much less looming pressure to sit and wait for notifications on something that I've said or posted about.

I am getting used to being alone with my thoughts, again, to not needing the validation that I'm witty or smart or deep. I can just be me and not worry about who I'm presenting myself as. I am me.

As the great Chuck Wendig so eloquently put it in his blog post today: "I will try to be present when the world asks that I be present."

And now it's time to move on.

Yesterday I mentioned a new 30-day challenge I'm going to embark on. I won't post about it in the same way I have the #noFacebook challenge, but it's another important one for me. For the next 30 work days (Monday thru Friday) I will spend at least 2 hours working outside my home.

See, I'm a freelance editor of novels. I get to work at home and read some pretty cool stories, and help authors sculpt their manuscripts into the best book they can write. It's an amazing job, but it takes a lot of time behind the screen. I have been going a little crazy being at my computer in my house all day every day.

But I also have a little anxiety disorder that makes the thought of taking myself anywhere else to work seem like this huge, horrible, scary thing that could never be accomplished. Because what about buses and finding power for my laptop and not being approached by weird scary people and getting thrown out of somewhere because I've been there too long and they don't like me anymore and being hungry or thirsty or needing a bathroom...? All the worst case scenarios I can think of... right now...

Obviously those are all not life-threatening problems and most are easily surmountable, but when you have anxiety disorder it makes everything seem unsolvable and life-threatening. So... yesterday, with a little extra encouragement from my good friend Gabriela over at DIY MFA, I ventured out into the wild for the first of my thirty days of working outside my home.

Yesterday's plan was to hit the library at 10, work for a couple hours, and then reward myself with a tasty lunch that was on the bus route home. Only the library didn't open until 1! (A worst case scenario I hadn't accounted for.) I almost went home right then, but it was my first day of challenging myself and I was determined. So I walked a mile to the downtown area and found some food and a seat with a plug next to it at Panera. And I spent three hours plowing through a frustrating manuscript to finish it instead of needing to work on it again today.

Today I'm at the library. Got here at 1:30. I got the bus schedule wrong, so I ended up spending an extra ten minutes waiting at the stop because it wasn't long enough for me to walk back to my apartment and wait, but now I'm here I have a good seat with a plug for my laptop and I'm shaking off the frustration that the library opened at 10 today... I'll get it right eventually.

My goal in all this is to face a fear, no matter how trivial it may seem to the rest of the world... and to eventually give my brain some external stimulus and help me feel more connected to the city in which I live.

So, reader, what about you? What fears do you need to face? How can you push yourself to try something new and different, even if it's a little scary? What new habit do you want to cultivate that I can encourage you in?

Day 29: 30-day #noFacebook challenge - The Penultimate Day

I've normalized my Facebook addiction in the sense that I don't NEED it anymore... but I feel that if I were to revert to my earlier way of thinking, if I let myself use Facebook whenever I wanted, it would take back over pretty quickly. So I'm not going to. I'm going to keep this once a day Facebook restriction as part of my every day. No more 30 day challenge after tomorrow... just normal life.

In other news, today I'm staring a new 30-day challenge (with some caveats that I'll explain later)... I'm going to try working outside my home. I'm a freelance editor by day, and while I love love love the job, the flexibility, the actual work... it can get challenging living inside the same 4 walls I work in.

So I'm challenging myself to get out and work in different places around my community this week. There are psychological reasons why this will be a) hard and b) totally worthwhile for me. So I'm diving in today! I'll let you know where I end up.

Day 24: 30-day #noFacebook challenge - Almost

I've pretty much decided to keep this restricted Facebook access habit. I like being in control of it instead of it being in control of me, is what it comes down to. There's no need for me to hover over the site waiting for notifications to pop up. I can get on with life just fine without them.

I'm wondering what my next 30-day challenge will be... I like the finite-ness of 30 days. It's not all that long, but long enough to make you feel like you've accomplished something when you get through it.

Leave suggestions for me? I'll give them due consideration and let you know in a few days what I decide to take on next!

Day 22: 30 day #noFacebook challenge - Real life is no piece of cake!

It's been 22 days. I haven't posted here every day like I wanted to, but I'm going to cut myself a little slack. I was participating in (and winning) Camp NaNo, so my writing time went elsewhere. But I also, in not hovering around Facebook every waking moment, spend a lot less time online in general. Which was not unexpected, I suppose, but... it has interesting side effects, this #noFacebook challenge.

What I've noted, now that I think the honeymoon period is over, is that real life is no piece of cake either. I have hit my head against a few walls in dealing with relationships people that I love dearly and who love me that I might not have hit if I'd been self-medicating with online interaction. But now I'm out in the open, floundering around and dealing with life while it's in front of me. And it's not necessarily pretty. But I'm trying. And no one has died yet. So... there's that.

I guess that, if you're going to try a challenge like this, you have to start from a belief that real life is worth the extra time that you're going to give it. And I do believe that, even with all its bumps and bruises. Life is worth living unmasked.

Day 17: 30-day #noFacebook Challenge - cookies

Today is better again. Today I feel normal. Today I like life away from the virtual chatter of what everyone else is or is not doing.

I baked cookies. I swam. I watered the garden. I read. If you wanted to know.

Almond butter cookies.

They were delicious.

Day 16: 30-day #noFacebook challenge - Moodswings

Man that voice in my head is tricky... the one that yesterday morning that was so triumphant, so sure that I was disconnecting from Facebook and that I didn't need it to be content...

But that voice... that voice... last night was so insistent that logging into Facebook a second time to change my profile picture was completely justifiable. I had just hit my Camp NaNo word count goal, after all... I needed to celebrate, right? Luckily, I talked myself back out of it before I did, choosing to wait until this morning when I logged on for my once daily to do it.

That voice was so sure that winning Camp NaNo was an urgent need, something that would lose luster if I waited any time at all to post about it. It was painful denying myself... but if I hadn't, I wouldn't really be able to continue this challenge. I would have failed. Because the whole point is that there's nothing that urgent. Sure winning Camp NaNo is important, but because it's important to ME, not because of the validation I'd get by posting about it for likes. It can wait. I can wait.

Day 15: 30 day #noFacebook challenge - Halfway

Today I hit the halfway mark in my 30-day challenge. I had to go back and count the days to figure that out. And I think that's a good thing.

I doubt this will be the halfway mark, really. I have a feeling that this will continue, perhaps with a little leeway given occasionally, but probably not, actually. I don't need it.

I have moments of this strange fear... fear that by unplugging this way that I'm somehow becoming irrelevant. But if anything I'm more relevant to my own life, to my own sense of here and now. And I'm content with that.

If I were the type of person for whom it didn't matter, the connection/disconnection of Facebook and the saltgrain motion of minutia and misinformation that goes on there, then I could probably behave more relaxedly toward the website. I wouldn't need to restrict myself. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I'm not that type of person... I recognize it and I don't like who I am when I'm using the site more freely.

I want to make sure I make time for the rest of my life and don't fritter it away staring at updates from everyone I know in cyberspace. I'll see you face to face. If not soon, then someday. And I look forward to that.

Day 11: 30-day #noFacebook Challenge - Echo chamber

Just because there's more noise doesn't mean there's more happening...

It feels quiet on the outside of Facebook. I definitely feel the alone-ness more out here, the silence is palpable somehow. I have more space, more time to spend in my own head. It's not being filled up with thoughts from the content mill anymore. It's there to be filled up with me.

I've been thinking that just because there's more action on Facebook, more notifications, more posts to draw your eye, doesn't necessarily mean there's more going on. It just one big echo chamber where the nothing keeps getting bounced around in the form of inane news articles about Donald Trump and the latest personality quiz telling you what your spirit animal is and which Harry Potter character you were in a past life. Instead of being still and silent so that you can fill it with your own thoughts.

You take the same quiz over and over and it tells you the same thing about yourself every time, which is exactly what you want to hear or believe about yourself. There's nothing new under the sun. Only now you have an outside source to validate it for you.

The so-called news is almost as bad as the "Forward this to at least 307 friends or you'll have bad luck for 10 years" post...

And how many people actually read what their friends' responses are to those "7 new things about me" surveys they tag you in? Nobody is looking at anybody but themselves. It's one big Echo Chamber reflecting you back to you, reflecting me back to me.

Day 9: 30-day #noFacebook Challenge - what's important

Wanna know a secret?

I love to cook. Before 7 this morning I was up making a fudge sauce to put into homemade ice cream for a friend's party later.

If you know me, it's not so much a secret, I guess. I'm always feeding people... it's part of my personal magic.

Getting stuck on social media inhibits my ability to share that gift, though. I start to feel rushed, like there's no time to do the things I want, because I've wasted it all staring at the computer screen. Not only that, but a screen is no substitute for real life. I can't feed my friends on Facebook. We don't get to gather in each other's physical presence. When I spend too much time on Facebook, I'm living elsewhere, not here. I want to live here, to experience now and be present for my life as it happens.

As you'll notice, I missed posting here a couple of days. I was so busy enjoying life that I didn't have that much time in front of the computer... and what time I had was spent writing, looking up recipes and patterns for creations that I can share with others.

I'm finding my mental and temporal freedom exhilarating.

Day 6: 30 day #noFacebook challenge - Being here now

I find that I complain a lot less now that I'm not on Facebook... Though snarky thoughts still come to mind, I don't have the instant gratification forum for them that social media provides. And it's actually making me more content, less quick to jump to criticism (of myself or others).

I didn't even notice that I didn't have Facebook today. In fact I almost forgot that I needed to post here today because I have been busy and happy doing so many other things on my list from yesterday.

I hope this is a continuing trend... this contentment. I do feel a bit of an echo, like I am out here all alone and all the action is taking place somewhere else... but I also feel like it's part of the process, and that soon I'll be fully present. Here and now.

Day 5: 30 day No Facebook Challenge - 15 things you can do with your Facebook-free time

I'm getting ambitious now! It's exciting to think about everything I can get done when I stop getting in my own way. Which is what I was using Facebook for... to get in my own way. So here's a list of 15 things you can do (and that perhaps I want to do) with the time you save by not frittering it away on Facebook.

1. Write a blog post (as if that wasn't obvious).
2. Get your work done faster. (Trust me, this will happen when you take back your focus)
3. Write letters to your friends, you know, the special ones who were the reason you started keeping up with Facebook in the first place.
4. Write a short story. (I'm working on one I hope to have published next year!)
5. Learn something completely new (like a foreign language or a new computer program).
6. Bake bread. (Here's a great book for that, and yes they have gluten-free options)
7. Read actual books. (See my Goodreads account if you need recommendations)
8. Take a walk. (my dog loves this option)
9. Train for a marathon (or a half-marathon, or a 5-k. How else are you going to escape the zombie apocalypse?)
10. Garden. I'm growing pumpkins.
11. Do yoga. (Quitting Facebook means more time away from your computer screen and out of your chair. Go stretch. Your body will thank you.)
12. Learn a new board game.
13. Crochet a dragon. 
    
14. Meditate.
15. Learn a creative art (like painting, or drawing, or sculpture).

What do you think? Too much?

Day 4: 30-day No Facebook challenge - Much Ado About Nothing

"Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into hey nonny nonny "

Today's been better as far as the Facebook cravings go. I recorded a podcast episode with my good friend and colleague Merianna Harrelson (I'll link to it when it goes live) in which we discussed productivity and the need for focus... and how Facebook can be the enemy of focus. It's always vying for your attention. That's what all those little notifications are for... to draw your eyes back to it, instead of to what is most important.

Your phone buzzes, or a little red number catches your eye and suddenly you're not working on that project or writing that blog post or engaging with your friends and family anymore. You're looking at your phone, scrolling through the feed and being distracted by what everyone else is doing at that moment.

This thirty day challenge is my attempt to break free, to take back my consciousness, to be present. And I feel like I did better, felt better, focused better today. It's a relief, actually, to be able to walk away from the computer and not worry about what I'm missing. I'm sure I'm missing something... but I want to care more about here and now.

“I can see he's not in your good books,' said the messenger.
'No, and if he were I would burn my library.” 

Day 3: 30-day #noFacebook challenge - Withdrawal symptoms

It's day 3 of my official #noFacebook challenge. And today is a challenge. Today I woke up with the creeping feeling that because I'm not present and active on Facebook everyone is going to forget me. And it's a hard feeling to shake, the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, the pinch and squeeze beneath my rib cage, the flutter of anxiety.

So the rest of this post is going to be a pep-talk to help me fight the painful feeling of withdrawal. Because it's a lie... and it's part of what I'm fighting against... the idea that Facebook is fulfilling any kind of need for connection with people. It doesn't actually foster community. It makes it easy not to have real connection with people.

Real connection is hard. It takes effort. Writing letters, making phone calls, actually meeting for coffee or dinner, it takes time and energy. It's why most people lose touch with all their high school buddies when they leave for college... because real life happens where you are, and the people who aren't there aren't part of it unless you take the time to make them part of it.

Facebook substitutes photos, links, and like buttons for real people... It seems easy to keep in touch with large amounts of people worldwide because you don't have to actually do anything to maintain "friendships". They just exist. And you can spend so much time obsessing over them, so much time scrolling through the news feed looking at what other people are saying and doing, that you can forget to be present, and neglect real life even as it's staring you in the face.

I'm going to have to sit with this feeling of withdrawal, because it's part of the process of healing from an addiction. And I'm going to have to trust the process, that the feeling will pass, that I can beat it and move on. And that the REAL people in my life will always be there.

Day 2: 30-day #noFacebook challenge - I have a new goal

Yesterday was difficult as far as figuring out the logistics for checking my work page without looking at my personal Facebook page. Pro-tip: if you don't have Page Manager on your phone, you'll have trouble keeping off your personal Facebook page there. I feel like downloading a Facebook-related app to keep my Facebook interactions down is... counter-intuitive, and counter-productive. So I'm now limiting my access to Facebook to my computer. It's probably better that way, anyhow... more manageable, and will help me keep myself more accountable.

My new goal, though, is to wake up not thinking about when I'm going to check Facebook or whether or not there will be any notifications waiting for me. I feel like it'll be a significant milestone, to wake up thinking about the things that are important to me (like Doctor Who or the novel I'm writing or the book I read yesterday) and not think about Facebook until I choose to do so.

Mind over matter, people.

Facebook, I'm going to quit you

I'm trying a thirty-day challenge... although I didn't really realize that was what it was until just now.

I'm going off Facebook... not permanently (maybe), not even really totally off Facebook yet... I still check in once a morning to see if there are any notifications I need to respond to (spoiler: There aren't!).

It was a spur of the moment decision that had been creeping up on me for a while now. People (and by people, I mean me, too) are addicted to the stream of information, the validation of "likes", the constant drone of someone else's every minute action that we then add our own bits to as well. For me it had turned into a nervous habit of checking Facebook every few minutes, even though there was no way anything could have changed since the last time I checked. My finger would just slide over the app and I'd find myself scrolling through the news feed before I even realized what I was doing, looking for that little pay-off, some response to something I had said or had been following in the stream of questionable information.

All social media (even this blog) is part of the problem, but some sites are more to blame than others. Facebook is prime suspect number one, in my book. I can waste hours (in little tiny five-minute increments) scrolling through the news feed, reading the updates of my friends, missing them, being jealous of them, judging them... and in the process squeeze out all of the time I could be spending on work or blogging or creating art.

Not to mention the content on Facebook is... troubling. I mean, never believe anything you read on the internet. Question everything. Double-check everything... triple-, quadruple-check it before you share it with others. Only we don't. And we spread other people's opinions around as if they are indisputable facts.

I got sick of it, of the fact that I was allowing a stream of useless (and sometimes emotionally and psychologically harmful) "information" to control such a large portion of my life. So I quit it. If I had ever been a smoker, I'd be one of those that quits cold turkey, falls off the wagon, and claws her way back on a few times before it takes. That's right, I've tried to quit Facebook before, unsuccessfully.

But this time, I hope, will be different. The parameters: For the next thirty days, I can check Facebook once a day (usually first thing in the morning and for a total of five minutes). Other than that, I can use Facebook as my business, Writing Refinery, to curate and post content, not more than two or three times a day. After thirty days I'll reassess, iterate if you will. The goal: To take back my mind and my time from the crazed slurry of the content mills and someone else's social agenda. My mind and my time are my own and I want to do other amazing things with them than stare at a Facebook news feed.

As an extra challenge to myself, I'm going to write here every day, discussing my triumphs and failures, what I've accomplished in my Facebook-free time, and when I fall off the wagon how it feels and exactly what it takes to climb back on.

I technically started this thirty-day Facebook free challenge last week (going to start counting from today, though). So far I've written two-thirds of a short story and a letter to a friend, finished two work projects in record time, and crocheted a blue dragon (only the wings left... when he's done I'll post a picture). I'm shocked and a little sickened by the amount of things that I always said I enjoyed doing that I'd let Facebook take time from.

So Facebook, get ready, because I'm going to quit you. No matter how long it takes.