* Sunday, 07/09/23 ** 12:23 The rules are that you put yourself out there on every social platform once, or a couple of times a day, forever, and you will prosper ** 18:23 Defining procedures is good for the soul. We're going to shoot for an Instagram post once a week. No exceptions. Daily posts weren't useful for a few reasons: - Not enough people were engaged because the work was poor. - The photos couldn't tell stories. It's really hard to say something across multiple days with photos found on the fly. - With my 'dynamic' work schedule and social life, it's difficult to know whether I have time on a specific day to edit and post a photo. It's not always possible for me to allocate the necessary thirty minutes to an hour to make that happen. - Daily photos don't build me to a larger goal. They accomplished one goal of mine - to keep thinking about photography - but instead of encouraging me to spend more and more time, I started cutting corners and producing bad work to meet that deadline rather than doing what I know I can do best. Making an Instagram post: - On Monday, think ahead about a theme, idea, or concept to tell a story about. - Group Lightroom photos and Google photos into an album based on that theme. - Figure out what new photos are necessary to complete that theme. Group those photos together. - On Tuesday, start playing with edits of existing photos. See which photos fit best together. Try introducing some new photos you've taken over the past day or so. - On Wednesday, go out and shoot. Walk around for awhile. Find a friend and take photos. All of these things. - On Thursday, put together a final set of words, edits and group of photos. - On Friday morning, review that selection to make sure it's cool and double check your work. - On Friday afternoon, put together and make the social media post. Try to hit multiple platforms. - Take the weekend to explore. Socialize. Walk around. Take as many photos as you can. Find new places and new people. Keep seeing them. ** 18:34 I'll have to be okay with compromising on my time to pursue all of the work I'm interested in. I still believe that I can do it all. There is so much time in my life that I am not using wisely, and now that I can trust my digital infrastructure a little more, I can continue to put the right systems in place to organize life. Once I have a BankID, I can add the gym to my schedule. Then I can pin down a food schedule (though that has no blockers today). Then work and sleep. Then the rest of life. Having a healthy foundation of food and friends, though, is the most important thing that I can do for myself now. When should I eat dinner? 7-8PM? Lunch at noon seems reasonable. Only two meals - with a snack and a banana, or just a banana, at about 10 AM in the morning. I'll figure out the rest as I settle into a rhythm.