Social media can be fun… but it can also be viciously distracting… like a hungry,
multi-headed demon who is hell-bent on sabotaging your productivity.

Insidious interruptions. image: publicenergy

If you have significant responsibilities (job, kids, clients) and a limited amount of free time, you have to play your cards carefully and marshal your attention and energy. Or else social media can easily become more of a liability than an asset.

In my own social media workflow, I have identified one dirty habit that eats up too much time and rarely produces anything in return:

Watching my own blog posts, tweets, and social news story submissions with baited breath…. anxious to see what kind of response they bring.

When you put your personality and life energy into creating something… your own writing, photos, headlines and ideas… it feels like a reflection of yourself. A digital reflection of the superego with a positive re-enforcement button: Our friends and fans can post comments and kudos to validate us and affirm we’re on the right track.

Getting sucked into your own digital reflection is a waste of time. image: Tawny Rockerazzi

You can post your gorgeous new Flickr pics and crack your knuckles while waiting for comments. Or you can watch your Digg story rise all morning long.. slowly going from 5 Diggs… to 7…to 12… to 21… to 29…to 34.. to 51 Diggs… and so on.

But this squanders a tremendous amount of social media attention that you could channel into something productive and beneficial, like:

• Adding new friends & followers who might be able to help you
• Nurturing and strengthen existing relationships – by helping other people out
• Brainstorming / creating new content to blog or guest post
• Searching for remarkable information (links) to share with followers or submit
• Updating your website / profile / business cards

The late magician Aleister Crowley taught his students to focus their willpower on what they wished to accomplish and not to lust after results.

I’ve noticed that many of true social media rockstars don’t lust after results – they just keep chipping away until they get where they want to be. They’re mature and disciplined – like a veteran stock market investor or a farmer – who doesn’t ‘watch the pot boil’ or harvest too early.

They don’t look back at the analytics, tweetbacks, or comments until several hours (or days) have passed. And they don’t need everyone’s validation and approval.

If you can learn to make your best effort, submit it & forget it – and then move on to your next power play…. you’re well on your way to mastering social media – rather than getting owned by it.

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