Shiny Extras Ate My Muse

It’s so easy to get caught up in the admin tasks, promotions and social media aspects of online shopkeeping! Oh, that most annoying aspect of trying to earn a living through your art, crafting and writing. If you were to tell me you’ve never lost a single day to Twitter, Facebook or other shiny online things, I’d be fiercely skeptical. Even the non-extra business duties can take way too long! Smack me for getting Lost in Cyberspace yesterday, accidental forays of web surfing while merely attempting a tidbit of research. How an attempt to research a technical tool turns into hours of reading webcomics, blogs and news articles, I’ll never know.
The balance I’d like to find, between time spent creating and the time spent doing all the business-y bits, looks a little something like this – 70% of my work time creating, 30% of it doing the business stuffs. Since initially filling out each listing does take time, realistically, that probably has to take up a good 5% (on a good day) from one or the other of those percentage blocks. That 70/30 split better start happening, like, this week or I may blow a gasket. Realistically though, I’d also actually need to calculate for a minimum of 5% of the work time being Captain Space Cadet, which would be my official title if I was a character in a TV show called Lost in Cyberspace… cuz there's no way to completely eliminate that.
I tell ya though, whenever less than 70% of my work week is spent on creating I feel awful, out of sorts and way cranky. Yes, I do Bent Realm Studios full time, and someday the income will reflect that or else the world risks incurring my wrath.
Over a year ago, I read a few forum posts, where the shopkeeper mentioned stuff about what works for them is just concentrating on making and listing their items and not really worrying much about the extras. Extras like social media, haunting blogs and forums. It resonates more with me the longer I think about it. And, I never was one for haunting the forums and blog comment sections. When I like a blog entry I’ll bookmark it and or tweet it, cuz either I have little to say about it, not going to force that, or I start writing a mini novel of a comment, thereby annoying myself near to death.
Definitely guilty of spending too much time dealing with social media though. To be fair I do need the outlet and the socializing, it’s good to share when I finished some art or managed to get a massive word count on my novel that day, but more than that most of my family and friends live hundreds of miles away, hell, my new boyfriend lives over 40 miles away, and hate the phone, so most of the time if my social motive is decaying to the point of pain (yes that is a Sims reference (add me), it’s turn to Facebook (add me) & Twitter (add me) or throw a fit of truly obnoxious proportions.  It’s a great way to make new friends, too. But I’ll be real honest – most days, I feel very on the quiet side. Then I end up having to really push it to interact, losing countless minutes just trying to think of something to say just so I don’t get dropped out of the loop. And well, to have a successful Twitter, you do have to hunt down random but relevant content to share. Which, when I have home internet I do make that effort. Thank God for tools like Hootsuite! That way I can be more efficient with my time. Ya know like spend a couple hours content hunting and writing up the status for them, using the app to schedule them spaced how I want them, thus maintaining a more regular consistent presence.
Most days I want to just create or re-charge. And, yes, by the way, since I am a writer I do consider writing my blogs to be on the creative end of things. Or at least, when the blog and the posts I’m working on don’t feel like jumbled chaos. When blogging is fun, it’s creating.
Who is wishing their time was closer to a 70/30 split with the majority being creating time? Have you come close to being able to do that or better? What balance might work better for you?
Who thinks the amount of time they spend on Twitter, Facebook, blog reading/commenting, forum haunting, and other type things takes too much  away from their creating? Are you regularly able to prevent yourself from getting too distracted by those shiny extras?
A time limit on how long to spend on those things, while a great idea, is far too easy to break.

{ed. note- Part of this was originally posted to my Indy Shopkeeper Chat blog in February 2011, but that blog was officially discontinued yesterday. Some of the stuff that I had planned to do there will go in this blog instead. Since I accidentally spent a few hours Lost in Cyberspace just yesterday it seemed an appropriate time to re-write this entry & put it in here}

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