My virtual friend (or vfriend) @CCSeed just twittered, "what's your purpose for engaging in social media? You have one, right?" and soon after my vfriend @ChrisKnight tweeted, "If you don't increase the speed that you deliver your website user experience, search engines are going to rightfully cache you out." I think they're talking to me.

See, I get up in the morning, turn on my computer, go through the night's FriendFeed and Twitter streams, and read the 40+ items waiting for me in my Google Reader. (For the last week this has taken me about three hours.) Then I keep up with those three services. Add the occasional dip into FaceBook, and if I want to, I can make this the entirety of my day; and lately, I have been. I always feel cruddy in the winter, and my definition of "crappy day" has gotten really sketchy lately, giving myself the permission to let my minimum effort become my standard. @CCSeed had started his questions with, "what's your best strategy for not getting distracted on social media?", and my thought was "Distracted by? It's what I get distracted from! Other than MiLady and my StepDaughter, it's my entire social life!" How sad is that? "I love my computer ; all my friends are in it."

And it sure as heck doesn't help me towards my goals. I have six different blogs, three of which I'd like to make some money from; I have plans for a small personal empire, for Pete's sake, and I'm not getting anything DONE! I'm learning a lot, but I'm not putting it into practice; I'm sharing a lot in my FriendFeed lifestream, and in the Popular Delusions room, but that's not making me any money, is it? I need to concentrate on the other end of the funnel, where the stuff goes OUT, not in. I have enough coming in to give me a headache; it's taking the time to DO something about it -- write about it, promote it, distribute it, discuss it -- that I'm not taking. I have the time; but I'm not using it. And that has to stop.

I'm great at making lists, but lousy at crossing things off of them; I spend more time wondering what system to use to keep stuff (PDA, Outlook, notebook, file cards . . . ) than I do generating things to keep. I have list of posts I  want to write . . . lists of plugins to investigate and tweaks to make to my blogs . . . lists of things to do and to write and to explore. Writing them on a list, or in a Task note, or on a mindmap isn't DOING them. It just makes me feel guiltier as the lists grow longer.

There's a lot of resistance there. Am I really still carrying around that, "I can't win, I can only not lose" meme that got hammered into me as a kid? I KNOW I can do this; why aren't I DOING it? Just how lazy am I? And do I really buy that "I'm building my brand" excuse I've been handing myself?

Because @ChrisKnight is right. If I don't get off the stick, my blogs are going to go the FAIL route, and the last thing I want to do is blow this chance to make enough money to stay home and play in my very own sandbox. I'll have to go get a JOB, and jump onto a different type of hamster wheel altogether, one that I've been on before and that I don't like very much.

I wish I had a conclusion, a final resolution, for this rant. But I don't. I have no clue how to get over this wall. Heck, I've only recently realized the wall is there. And today, thanks to my vfriends @CCSeed and @ChrisKnight, I'm trying to figure out how to get over this thing. Time and my lifestream will tell, I guess. Thanks for listening to me rant; and any suggestions would be gratefully appreciated.