Work-Life Balance and FIO

It's been a really long time since I've blogged about my favorite topic, FIO. (Not sure what FIO means? Clearly you need to do some homework and familiarize yourself with this blog and the dominant theme in my life.)

I have to tell you: lately my blogging has taken a distinct FIO turn. Life is just too busy--I have a new job, kids, housework, a husband, some attempts at a social life that does not take place exclusively online, some semblance of an exercise regimen that I try to stick to, etc. In short: there are only so many hours in a day--24 to be exact. And when 8 of those hours are taken up at work and 2 commuting, that leaves 14 hours. Subtract 7 from that for sleep, and that leaves 7 hours to do all of those things listed above, plus stuff like grocery shop, recreate in some way or another...oh, and keep up with blogging, twitter, Facebook and all the rest of it.

The bottom line? There are not enough hours in the day for me to get everything done that I want to get done. If I didn't care about blogging I'd just forget about it, but for whatever reason blogging is my main favorite thing to do in life. Well, writing is, and since sadly no book deal has magically materialized, blogging is about the only for-fun writing I get to do. Like anything fun that people get addicted to: scrapbooking, working out, shopping, whatever--I have gotten addicted to writing. If I don't do it I start to go crazy and I'm already crazy enough, so I've learned to just make time for it and blog regularly.

The problem is that when you're on a tight schedule like I am, sometimes your blogging suffers. Like maybe the TV is on and you're sitting on the sofa next to your husband, who's giving you the stink-eye worse and worse with every passing minute and you're rushing to finish your post so you can be done with it and he can stop sighing and making snide comments about the computer. Maybe you get distracted, or cut corners on the thought you're trying to work through via that day's blog post. The result is a half-baked blog post at best; and one that's just flat-out wrong or offensive in a way you didn't mean.

My best example of this was when I wrote a post about Chris Brogan and something he said on Twitter. I was rushing to finish because one of the kids was bugging me to HURRY UP AND GET OFF THE COMPUTER so I cut my post off short (I have no idea what it was I cut but I distinctly remember that I had a larger point but I just stopped where I was because I couldn't take the whining anymore). Next thing I know Chris Brogan is tweeting the link to my post and lambasting me in the comments. In that case it worked out ok for me because that was the most blog traffic I have ever gotten, but still, half-baked is half-baked.

So twice in the past week or so I have FIO'd a blog post on my other blog. Read this post--then read the comments. Whoops. Now same thing with the post I wrote yesterday about Comcast and customer service--I meant the post to be about the larger issue of social media and customer service being kind of at odds with each other, with social media being done by people who are truly passionate about their jobs and their companies and customer service people usually, well, not so much. Then Social Media Today picked it up and suddenly a "meh" post in obscurity was seen by thousands of people.

Now Matthew (my 11 year-old son) has strep, I'm sick with something, the work-week has started, Thanksgiving is coming...and I have comments to respond to and need to email the poor Comcast guy to explain that I really didn't mean to take pot shots at him or Comcast in particular--I meant to talk about customer service in general and include other examples like Sprint, etc...but I was pressed for time and hit "publish post" before I'd finished my thoughts.

Sigh. Welcome to my world.

The Real Reason I Love Social Media

In 140 characters or fewer, this is why I love social media:

@themediaishirin Helping laid off media employees find new work 140 characters at a time. Email us at mediaishiring@gmail.com

Reasons why this is awesome:

1) A 140 character resume as a serious way to find a new job? Hells yeah. You can't get more FIO than that, unless the world is reduced to communicating via meaningful glances or tongue clicks.

2) The name is really themediaishiring. But the dude either mistyped and left off the "g" or that was too long a username. Does he sweat it? Nope--in the awesome world of social media stuff like that just doesn't matter.

In traditional communications there are all kinds of rules: you have to have a journalism degree; you have to proof and edit and proof again--mistakes are forbidden; you have to use correct punctuation; you have to use italics and footnotes with subscripts and all that kind of stuff.

But in "new" media? Fuck that shit. Forget the "g" on the end of your name? Makes it more authentic. Italics? So old-school. Typos? Whatever--everyone knows bloggers are so busy furiously expressing themselves that they can't be bothered with editing or proofing. And don't even think of hiring someone to edit for you--that's a big no-no; again with the authenticity.

And times like now, when I started a post but have to be somewhere in 5 minutes so don't have time to think of a snappy ending--no matter.