Make Social Easy On Yourself

 The days are still dark in the morning, let’s face it January weather sucks! Which isn’t making this walking malarky any easier.

But give me an audiobook and a destination and I’m happy as a 🐷 in 💩

I’m back on it. Like a man possessed. I don’t listen to anything on the way out. Once I’m warmed up and my morning hellos are returned in actual language rather than grunts and I’ve reached that all important turnaround point. I put in my headphones and the brain is ready to jack into all that sweet, sweet knowledge.

Last weeks required reading was Smallfry, an Autobiography by Lisa Brennan Jobs. 

The first estranged daughter of Steve Jobs.

Listening to this book gives you a whole new perspective on the myth and enigma that was Steve Jobs and explains why their relationships was so strained.

There are parts of Steves story which remind me of how childlike he was and growing up adopted it kind of makes sense.

This quote in particular sums him up beautifully.

"The way I saw him create was the best part of him, sensitive, collaborative, fun. The friends he worked with got to see this more than I did. Maybe the meanness protected the part that created."

There was one line that really (and I mean REALLY) got under my skin.

When Lisa tells her dad that she would like to look at another school (she was at a private school) he suggested she look at the local state school in Palo Alto. His rational was that she could walk to school and in turn see the seasons change. I think that’s why Steve was such an enigma. Someone that could sometimes be so out of touch with other people, but also be so completely in tune with the human condition. With what it means to be alive. 

Maybe it was the fact I was walking at the time, but it hit me like a ton of bricks. How often do we slow down enough to appreciate the majesty and beauty all around us.

So to that end I have created this edition around the feedback loop of creation. Ironically slowing down from the actual process of creating content and running a business helps us BE more creative. Here are a few tips to get you started.

1. Play Hooky

One of the things that really made me chuckle in the book was how Steve told Lisa on one of the days he was looking after her early in their relationship that they were going to play hooky.

A man that was so driven and ran a multi billion pound company was simply going to take the day off work so they could have fun.

If he can, you can. If you feel like you’re getting burnt out, do something fun. Explore how you felt and reconnect with WHY you started the business in the first place or WHY you turn up for work (newsflash it ain't the money).

Reconnecting with yourself and play allows your brain to switch over to creative mode. Where ideas flow like honey. You to have to switch off to switch on creativity .

Our brains are only open to subconscious thoughts when they are relaxed. "Often [the subconscious] won’t be able to interpose with the conscious mind until it is still and uninterrupted," says Chris Lewis CEO of the Lewis Agency. 

In fact, Albert Einstein once said that "creativity is the residue of time wasted".

Modern life is intrinsically geared towards combating creativity at every turn. Technology being the prime candidate.

So don’t forget to switch off, your content will thank you.

2. Schedule 

If you are going to use tech, own it, rather than it owning you. A great way of creating more creative time for yourself is through scheduling. With LinkedIn's new scheduling feature you can get some of your time back!

To schedule your post, simply click the clock icon to choose the date and time you want your content to be shared. You can make edits as you go and be in complete control of your content. 

There are some caveats (it doesn't work for every content type, polls and newsletters being prime examples) but it’s slowly becoming more useful.

Me and my awesome PA Hayley even created a content calendar for you to plan the week ahead. Which you can use HERE! Think about your content pools (your values) and the streams that come from those. You can read about those HERE. Then at the weekends (when we are switched off and usually at your most creative) start to plan your content for the week. Much less stressful.

3. Get Natural 

I cannot stress this enough. Step away from the screen and get in the outdoors. Nature has the capacity to allow to zone out, all that oxygen fro the trees and our biological link to the outside does something to the human brain and allows your brain to boost attention. A new area of study called Attention Restoration Theory, has begun to find that exposure to natural environments can help the brain recover and replenish its ability to direct attention. This means time in nature can give us more attention available for persistently sticking to our problem solving and seeing our ideas through.

4. Strategy

Be meaningful with your content. Who are you trying to speak to? Understand your client avatar but also don't get so entrenched in the science of marketing that you forget to be human. Plan your content ahead of time (very difficult for us creatives I know). One way I found a workaround for this was having particular topics framed, but then still going in on the day and creating the content on the fly so it felt more spontaneous.

Nobody knows ourselves better than we do. So being yourself (your whole self) should form a HUGE part of your strategy. We attract what we put out into the world.

I heard another amazing Steve Jobs quote from his daughter Lisa in the book.

"My father gave a speech in which he said that it wasn’t love that brought people together and kept them together, but values—shared values." 

And that’s all we are really doing on social, showing and proving our values through our content and finding people that align with those to do business with. 

Any more than that is window dressing.

See you next week for more Electric Dreams and remember it's January (a crappy time of the year for a lot of people). So make it easy on yourself.