I realize not many people read (and quite possibly weren’t aware it even existed) my Notebook that logged my daily goings-on (which recently became my weekly goings-on). For over a year, I had an online Notebook that recorded my accomplishments, my learning, my reading, my writing, my projects’ statuses, great things I’d heard, and my blog posts…all in one neat little blog entry.
Initially, I started it as a means to prove to myself that I wasn’t the loser I was starting to think I was. I’d write these posts, and once a week (or so), I’d read back over them and realize that I was actually getting things done. And it was a great motivator for some time, and it was great for keeping me from being too hard on myself. Over time, though, it became hard to find the time and energy at the end of the day to update it. The reading list became nothing but manga and books on writing. I admittedly became disillusioned with the whole thing, but I kept trying to post, albeit irregularly.
I was one of three of four people who actually read it anyway, and most of the people who read it were talking to me every day or three, so they knew a lot of what was going on anyway. The Notebook just seemed pointless, and it had become just one more drain on my time and energy when I had neither left to give.
I’m not entirely willing to give up on this idea of documenting my life, though, so for now, I’ve turned to Twitter. I can IM whenever I have something to say, which makes it efficient and relevant. I don’t have to worry about forgetting something. (I do seem to have a little voice in my head that continually says, “That’s not important enough to tweet,” but that’s fine.)
I’m trying to preserve as much of the Notebook as I can over there. Accomplishments and things learned can be followed by reading the tweets tagged [TIA] and [TIL]. Books I’ve just read will be noted with the tag [Books]. I haven’t committed to keeping the best line of the day yet, but I’m thinking about it. I’m also not doing either the “100 words” or the blog post links. What I’m doing instead is trying to keep people up to date on my projects and linking to things as they go online. For example, I’ve started posting to eHow, and I link to every new article when it’s published. When I get around to restocking my Etsy store again, new pieces will be announced with tweets as well.
It’s like a Rebecca news feed, as Rebecca’s life happens. And you can subscribe to its RSS feed. Isn’t that handy? (Once we get this site upgraded and I figure out how to convince LoudTwitter that it can send the same bundle of tweets to two different websites, there will be a daily post of all that day’s tweets. It won’t be as organized as the Notebook, but the tags will hopefully help people find what’s important to them.)
