The recent trolling has given me pause and forced me to think about how I spend my time and what the benefits are from my activities. I wrote previously about how I was burning the candle at both ends and that it was simply not sustainable. It was a great thought, but I never followed through with trimming my activities. It’s become apparent that I simply must trim some activities for my own health and sanity.

I’ve started to make a list of what is important to me and what is less so. Clearly there are things that I can put off until I am able to give them the time that they deserve. My list of important items is short, necessarily so, and to the point. They are as follows:

• Family
• Art,
• AJ Ning
• Writing

That’s it. I can live without twitter, facebook, ustream and a host of other things. I’ve been splitting my attention from the top 4 things too much and I feel it shows in the quality of stuff I’ve been producing or rather, haven’t been. My drawing practice that I worked so hard on last year has deteriorated because I’m not giving it the time it needs.

One of the things I’m giving up is UStream. I had scaled back and taken a break and I was hoping that when I came back to it I would find that same excitement I had when I first streamed. I didn’t. I totally fell out of love with UStream. Add to that the malicious troll attacks and well… Yeah. Giving it up. What I DO plan on doing is some special event UStreams. I’ll advertise them well here. You can think of what I plan on doing as a free or low cost mini class. I’ll put up the items you’ll need with perhaps an instructional PDF and the demo it during the show. I don’t know how many of these I’ll do, but it will be on a whim sort of thing.

I gave up TV to make more time for art but I’ve replaced that void with watching UStream. I plan on watching SOME shows but just not the amount I’ve been watching lately. I love the interactive shows but I get sucked in. I used to watch while I arted along, I’ve stopped arting along. I need to focus on art while watching the shows. I’m going to focus on those shows that I really enjoy. (Not telling which) Obviously I am not able to make many due to my work schedule that won’t change.

I’ll be cutting back on twitter and facebook. I’ve been using them as distractions to feed my procrastination. I’ve got 10,000 words of my book written and I’ve hit a rut and I’m doing everything I can to avoid thinking about the rut, how to get out of the rut , and worst of all not doing anything about but avoiding the topic.

I’m strongly considering downloading one of those internet timers that will lock me out of the internet for periods of time. Alternatively I could show some willpower… Right.

I’m looking at some of the other things I’m involved in and seeing how I can free up more of my time to devote to the top 4. You can expect more posts on this topic.