Socratic Monologue
Lessons learned thus far:
- I miss letting a large number of mostly anonymous people situated around the globe what I’m having for supper, or what my children just did or a link to something cool I just found out on the internet. (If you are interested in links to cool things I’ve found, you can always check out my links on del.icio.us or subscribe to the feed.)
- At least 2 people read the RSS feed from my blog (Thanks Heather and Donna).
- I miss knowing that Dean is having a nap.
- I am less distracted from my work. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or not.
- Spending time playing with my children is fun. If this was the only lesson I learned (reminded of, actually) out of this, it is invaluable.
I think that part of the time I’m reclaiming from twitter has been spent reading through some of the items in my Google Reader account. (You can read the links I’ve shared or subscribe to the RSS feed of my shared links if you’re interested). I’ve even taken time to leave comments on a couple of blogs, and to go to the actual blog site to see what the blog looks like. The makes me all misty and nostalgic as I think back to those crazy, care-free early days of blogging – actually visiting other peoples blogs!
The experience thus far has been largely positive, although I do miss the social contact. I feel less connected to many of my friends. We used to connect through our blogs, but that connection seems much more frail than it used to.
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I didn’t have a nap. Hope I’ll see you at Sir Ken on Thursday.
I’ll be there. If you start to nod off, I’ll poke you in the ribs.
I thought we might be able to have a short chat before and/or after Sir Ken and record it for a podcast. Any chance you’ll be bringing the dogs with you?
Hi Rob,
I saw your tweet about going without Twitter until Friday but didn’t know your reasons for this choice (you may have been going to the cabin for the week). Then tonight I noticed that Dean tweeted about today’s blog post saying, “So that’s where he’s been.” In other words, he missed you.
So I guess I still found out about this blog post via Twitter. However, I’m interested in how you do for the rest of the week so I’ll add your blog to my RSS feed in Google Reader. Of course, I am about 1000 entries behind because of trying to keep up with Twitter. As a relatively new Twitter user (since early July), I am interested in learning how to have balance with keeping up with Twitter and still doing all the other things I have to do. Ruth in Saskatoon
Thanks for taking the time to read the post, Ruth. One of my hopes for the retreat this week is to understand where that balance is for me. I will be sure to share the results. I’ll probably do that here – I anticipate that my reflections will take up more than 140 characters.
I read your RSS feed. If I depended on Twitter to find out what’s new, I’d spend my time doing nothing but watching Twitter traffic.
Stephen, I found that’s what I was doing. There’s a constant flow of links to new and/or interesting information online, especially if you follow Alec Couros
I think the Twitter-stream can be useful if you have the right kind of filters – being selective about your follows and using Twitter search to drill down to the most useful information are the two techniques I use.
I’m not at all surprised that you are more of an RSS user. I don’t know how you’d manage to assemble OLDaily using the Twitter stream. A daily newsletter of tweets just wouldn’t have the same quality of information. I’m think that my week without Twitter reflections will probably expand on that idea.