Big Question: Time Spent

An excellent question for one and all, and what better opportunity to motivate me to get back to the blogging scene that I have been away from for quite long now, and so for reasons precisely related to Time Spent. Tony thanks for this excellent question!

To start with I'd like to tell folks that I am quite versatile and love doing a lot of things. I live believing that after all I have only one life to do everything that I want to do, so I do not stop myself if i have an urge to do something quite new and compelling, that I would enjoy.

So what do I spend my time with?
Well I work on weekdays, so my commute to work and back itself takes a away a lot of my time. At work, I manage to tweet and get on FaceBook and chat with my friends and colleagues in breaks between working. These are important to me and I have linked my twitter and FaceBook accounts so the tweets are shared on FaceBook as well. But I have several friends on FaceBook (school time friends, other friends and colleagues) with whom I share a more personal relation, so I quite often set more personal messages on FaceBook only, and enjoy it when my friends come back with comments that often add humor to the situation. Social media does become an integral part of my life as a lot of my friends aren't in the same location as me and it isn't possible for me to meet them otherwise. I was recently, suddenly flooded with loads of work and had several issues to resolve that were making my current project very complex. I was really stressed and bogged down and was feeling guilty for a while that I didn't have time or the bandwidth to blog. My mind was always preoccupied and I couldn't write blogs or read a lot of other blogs and news in such a situation. But, my feeds stay in my reader so I can read them at a later point and time. That way twitter is really effective to keep me up to date and point me to the most valuable posts and latest happenings. It almost comes like a breath of fresh air in such times. So twitter is just great for me!

What am I doing less of today?
Social media has actually got me connected back to zillions of people whom I had lost touch with many years ago. I don't think I'm doing less of anything but actually doing a lot more things now. Today, I'm more exposed to information and more aware as a result of social media. I love reading blogs and learning from all you wonderful folks in the community. All this gives me a broader perspective while doing my job and I owe a lot to the confidence I've gained in the field of instructional design and elearning to social media. So, effectively I am doing a lot more things that I ever thought I would be doing before. I've also fallen in love with photography and have a group of colleagues who go for photoshoots on weekends once in a while. I'm learning from them and from the collaborative photography site Trek Earth where I post my photos. I have connections and networks here as well and that adds to my satisfaction.

I am simultaneously fascinated by several things and also want to do my bit to the environment and participate in tree plantation, play a volunteer role in activities organized by our employee club, learn aerobics to stay fit, yoga someday, eat well, shop...etc. I also love to travel and am absolutely in love with nature. Saving up money so I can visit wildlife sanctuaries in India or anywhere that I can make it to. I love spending time with friends and family too and drop everything when I get a chance to do that. I am also an ardent sleeper and sleep late at night and wake up late in the day on weekends. In effect I love to sleep ... :) So, my life is a mix of all these things and I am not very consistent or disciplined about doing just one thing. So lots of things often result in my occasional lapse in blogging or regularly following on or commenting on people's posts. But I do love to and push myself to multi-task. I tell myself that I should be able to do everything and not complain that I don't have enough time. I take things as they come and don't fret about them before.

Sometimes all this gets really overwhelming, so I manage to cut off too when I feel like I'm reaching my threshold, and I enjoy those solitary moments as well. Wake up and sit with a cup of tea, read the newspaper or just a book. I also dream of going off to some far off place with only nature around me, sans technology and gain back my peace of mind. Thinking of such things replenishes my brain cells that get dulled with the daily grind of commute to work and getting back. So, effectively to answer the last question is, I actually have a better life due to social media and not the reverse. My motto is to live life to the fullest learn all I want, do all I want, live the way I want! So social media can actually be used to your advantage .... think about it!