As I’ve been writing this post, I’ve felt so pretentious when it comes to using the word “sabbatical” as it relates to something like social media.

I mean, I’ve always associated sabbaticals as something that professors, academic types, religious leaders, and higher-ups take. Not just an average dude who makes a living on the Internet.

Sabbatical or a sabbatical (from Hebrew: shabbat (שבת) (i.e., Sabbath), in Latin: sabbaticus, in Greek: sabbatikos (σαββατικός), literally a “ceasing”) is a rest from work, or a break, often lasting from one month to a year.

But I suppose, by that definition, it makes sense, right?

Anyway, I started the trend earlier this year, it went well, and I want to keep a consistent theme going at least for 2018, so why stop it during just the second time through?

Social Media Sabbatical of 2018: Episode II

Social Media Sabbatical of 2018: Episode II

The last time I did this, it was largely motivated by the idea to work on the business and to get a better handle on focusing on things like deep work, parenthood, leisure, writing, and so on.

And, for what it’s worth, the time off went well. I mean, it should be obvious given that I’m going to be doing it again. All of the above are still things on which I want to focus, but they are far part of my day-to-day than when I started.

So what am I going to be doing in the coming month and why am I taking off of social media?

The Coming Month

One of the goals that I set for myself earlier this year was to do more reading than I’ve done since last year. Suffice it to say that I’ve evended up spending more time ready than I originally anticipated.

Not a bad thing at all.

1. Self-Directed Studies

But this has lead me to want to do a few self-directed studies that I’ve carved out and that I’m planning to try to tackle over the course of a year or so.

Second Social Media Sabbatical of 2018

Here’s the thing:

These particular studies aren’t doing aren’t like a course that we can purchase online. Instead, it’s a combination of material that I’m putting together for myself after doing a bit of research.

Each assignment consists of:

  1. reading a book,
  2. listening to a corresponding lecture series (by the author of the book),
  3. taking an assignment or participating in something that allows me to apply or assess what I’ve learned.

For now, one of the things that I’m going to be pursuing as to do with a bit of philosophy and psychology. These are tertiary interests of mine, but it’s something that into which I want to do a deeper dive. To do that, need to be able to clear some time in my schedule to make room for it.

After all, we’ve only got some much time in the day for the things we want to do, right? This particular study is slated to take me from the first of August to the end of September assuming that I stay on top of it.

2. Fitness

Secondly, I’m also going to be participating in a fitness challenge, of sorts, which I’ll talk more about later this week (since it’s something I also occasionally write about).

The gist of it, though, is that I’m going to be competing not only with myself, this time around, but with my dad (yes, my dad 😎).

So I’m pretty stoked about that.

3. Better Organization

One of the things that personally plagues me is the constant desire to have the perfect organization of applications on my phone all the while not wanting to be too pre-occupied with it.

The latter part of that isn’t so much of a challenge, but the former is. And in order to try to get a good handle on this, I need to basically nuke all of the stuff that I have on there, start at ground zero, and work my way back up.

I’m even considering documenting the process in case it’s helpful for someone else, too. (And perhaps I’ll ask others come in and review the what I’ve done to make it better.)

“And You Have To Leave Social Media For This?”

I don’t necessarily have to leave social media for this, but I’m of the personality type that, over time, I become fatigued with it.

I don’t need to provide a disclaimer [again] about the friends I’ve made on it or anything like that. Instead, this is a two-fold thing for me. The first is simply the brain space occupied by keeping up with certain things will occupy the brain space I have for the studies I want to do.

Secondly, I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about social media and the role it plays in the lives for most of us.

As it stands right now, I currently view it more as an experiment for us as anything else. I’m not saying it hasn’t done great things for us; nor am I saying it hasn’t done bad things for us. But in the course of human history, I think the verdict is out on if this is something that’s healthy or not and I simply want to give some time to thinking about all while distancing myself from it.

This isn’t to say that I won’t be using it to share blog posts or projects. After all, it’s a primary channel by which I market a bit of my material and I’m incredibly appreciative of the response it gets, but I don’t need to necessarily “check in and participate” to passively participate if that makes sense.

Finally, I don’t know where Instagram fits into this either. It’s got a completely different feel and experience than Facebook, Twitter, and the other services. I don’t know if I’ll go cold turkey on it or not. If anything, the story feature is nice and I enjoy being able to document and share the various things I’m doing.

Who knows. Perhaps the best thing for me to do in the coming weeks is to give it a rest and then return to it with a retrospective.

We’ll see in the coming weeks.

Until September

Alright, so that’s what I’m planning to be doing on top of my usual day-to-day tasks with family, work, and fitness. I’ll be around doing the usual non-sense on Twitter until August 1st but then that’ll be it for a month.

And just as I said in the previous month, I will continue to keep writing on this blog, so look for the tweets (automated – I said it!) or subscribe in your RSS reader of choice. And if you really want to get in touch with me, then do so.

Email is still a thing and I generally respond to them unless they are spammy. And you’re not spammy; otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading this far into the post, am I right?

Of course. 🙂

I'm currently writing an eBook (along with a variety of other premium content). If you're interested, check out what you get.