Upcoming changes in my life

2010 didn’t turn out the way I expected it in many ways. Not because it’s been a bad year. Nothing further from the truth. So far, it has been an amazing year. I have grown so much, and in ways I didn’t expect, so much so that I can recognize the changes in the way I have approached my own life even in the small little details.

I do, however, foresee a number of changes that I need to make in my multifaceted life. I have been working 12-16 hour days trying to juggle my academic work, my social media and policy consulting, my teaching and research, and my social life, including time with friends, both from the online and the offline world.

This extremely-busy life has had a detrimental effect in some (not all) of my relationships, and the truth is, the holidays and getaways I did this year (particularly with my Mom to Calgary and Parksville/Qualicum Beach) were instrumental in showing me how much I have needed a vacation.

I am thrilled that my blog and my Twitter account have reached such high readership. As I mentioned before, I did not even expect to have been able to do what I currently do, and to have the exposure, audience and reach that I do. I’m incredibly grateful for that.

Last year, I made myself a promise that I would be attending less events and that I would work on saying “no” more often, so that when I attended I would be fully there. Truth is, I succeeded for a while, but this summer has been all kinds of insanely busy. I might have been overbooking myself again.

So my promise to myself this fall is to fix that, and focus on a number of things that I want to do:

• Play again competitive volleybal in a local league
• Return to salsa dancing (even if not competitive, but just taking lessons maybe for the first little while)
• Improve my French (which is one of the weakest of the languages I speak)
• Spend more time with my old friends (particularly those I met before I had a life online
• Focus more on my academic writing and get out all the research output I have been struggling to get out (admittedly, I have perhaps a few too many research papers in progress!)

Which means, as you may imagine – much less blogging, and much less attending events, and saying more NOs than I am used to.

Keeping my 2010 manifesto on my blog’s sidebar has helped keep me accountable. My friends online have helped keep me accountable (thanks to all of you who have frequently reminded me I was working on learning to say NO more often). And writing these milestone blog entries helps me be more accountable.

I began reducing my current commitments by resigning from some of my volunteer duties. I am pretty sure I will not be accepting many event invitations starting next month. And since I am back to teaching undergraduate courses, my availability is reduced anyways.

All of this in summary to say – I love what I do, ALL of it. I love it when people tell me “if there’s someone who can combine the social media persona with the academic, it’s you“. And I love the accolades. Who doesn’t? I’m human, after all, and I’m not immune to praise.

But I need to keep my eyes on the prize. I need to keep my focus on my research, my teaching, my consulting projects and my collaborative academic projects, including my research publications.

So, starting September 1st, please accept my apologies in advance if I say “sorry, I can’t make it” to your event/PR pitch/tweetup/gathering.

It’s not you, it’s me.