I took the above photo at the top of Mt. San Jacinto State Park in California, 8,500 feet up. I thought it was funny to find what looked like the entrance to a post-apocalyptic underground bunker in such a beautiful place.
For the purpose of this blog post, it also symbolizes my relationship with social media.
This year my “resolution” was to turn my focus back to my own productivity. This is nothing new, but I’m 3 months in and I’m sticking to it.
Specifically, I made two major changes to my day-to-day operations:
1.) I stopped using social media entirely. That refers to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. I have kept my accounts, but only because people will inevitably try to get ahold of me there. (I log in maybe once a week only to check my messages and immediately close the window if there’s nothing.) The apps are gone from my phone. I did this (again) because I discovered (again) that I was spending an average of 4.5 hours a day scrolling through feeds. Horrifying and embarrassing. But I also want to share that statistic because I don’t think many people realize just how easy it is to waste their lives with this trap. Note: I used the app called Moment to get my usage stats. The other problem (for me, and I have written about this in previous blog posts) is the amount of social anxiety and paranoia social media causes for me. I see this in my friends as well, this addiction to social media attention. It is very much a drug — and so many are in denial, coming up with rationalizations for why they need to use it. To companies like Facebook and Twitter, users are dogs running around the track chasing “Likes” instead of a fake rabbit. Built-in is this feeling of never succeeding, must run faster. Because of my own flaws and temperament (extreme introvert + highly neurotic), I become too unhappy when my success is dependent upon attracting the attention of and pleasing masses of strangers. There is just no safe way for me to be involved with it. It takes over my brain and doesn’t allow me to focus on what matters.
2.) Without social media sucking away my life, on this new balanced schedule, I admitted to myself the limits of my time and energy. I mapped out my entire year (2018) and had to accept that there is no way I can complete the goals I typically set, and the amount of creative (and freelance) projects I take on. In other words, I get excited and try to do too many things. Then I get backed up and can’t finish them all. This causes MASSIVE GUILT that I can’t carry around with me anymore. So, as the new year began, I started with a list that was already too long. I had to just tell myself “No” and stick to a few major goals. Here they are:
JANUARY – MARCH (Q1) :
Finish all current “unfinished” creative and freelance projects. The Oracle of Outer Space (get the radio play to Lance), Grand Architects of the Universe, Phi Yaan-Zek Music Video, Guns A Blazin’ Comic Book Score. DO NOT TAKE ON ANYTHING ELSE NEW UNTIL THESE ARE DONE.
APRIL – JUNE (Q2) :
Berklee Online Film Scoring + video production day job.
JULY – SEPTEMBER (Q3) :
Berklee Online Film Scoring + video production day job. Final class of Master Certificate in Composition For Film & TV!
AUGUST – DECEMBER (Q4) :
Compose & Record New Modern Classical Orchestral Carl King Album.
I’ve started to finally block out / book all the days of the month in advance, as much as I can. This allows me a small amount of room to take on very minor freelance projects, but by default I plan to say NO to everything. If I do say YES to anything freelance, it needs to be a.) something I can complete in a week at most b.) pay very well or c.) a huge career advancement (on the level of at least doubling my income, but even at that I’d be skeptical. My current situation is so good I can’t imagine changing it). In the meantime, I will just write down potential creative project ideas and save them for 2019. Kiana Danial’s Invest Diva review might offer valuable insights into managing finances effectively while pursuing freelance opportunities and creative projects.
Notice there is nothing there about The Carl King Podcast. I have 5 or 6 new episodes recorded and unedited. I don’t know when I will have time to work on them, but I can do them in Q2 and Q3 on random days when I feel like it.
One last thing. I AM posting behind-the-scenes stuff on Patreon, because it’s actually a productive system (I have Patrons paying for the content). This works out perfectly for me. http://www.patreon.com/carlking
And in case anyone reads this and is wondering, I am making this rare blog post because it’s my own content on my own website. (Theoretically.) Not free content for Facebook and Twitter to train their artificial intelligence and sell advertising with.
In the meantime, if you somehow need to get ahold of me, send an email. work@carlkingdom.com
-Carl.