Re-Evaluating How I Spend My Time on the Blockchain 🕙
Rethinking How I Spend My Time On Steemit
There's nothing wrong with creating tons of content. In fact, when you're new to Steemit (or Dtube, Dlive, etc.) you should be putting out all the content you possibly can. Because, as we all know, even if you have a HUGE following on YouTube or elsewhere online, it's not likely they'll follow you over to Steemit... at least not right away. That's been my experience watching big channels join the decentralized movement and create their Steemit accounts. We have to put in hard work, find out what our audiences are interested in, and post every day when possible if we want to gain any viewership on Steemit.
But at some point you'll want to find a balance. At least that's what I'm finding for myself. Sure, it's nice to post something every day, build up a healthy following of people who enjoy the same things you're interested in, and get all of those upvotes on your posts. I mean, who doesn't like free money, am I right!? But how rewarding is that? For some, it can be very rewarding and that may be all they're interested in doing here. And that's perfectly fine.
But I've found that it's just as enjoyable to curate other people's content and participate in other activities on the blockchain. And I feel that I could be doing more of that if I were to re-evaluate how I use my time here. So here are some changes I'm making for myself, my followers, and the blockchain as a whole!
More Curation
Sounds self-explanatory, but let me add a little more here to hold myself accountable. 😉
Instead of trying to post something new everyday on my own channel, I will spend more time focusing on others and upvoting & resteeming great content that I find. There are several reasons why I've been wanting to do this. For one, there are a lot of great authors out there who's work I really enjoy reading/viewing. Two, because with the @minnowfund initiative I'm always looking to find new people who we can support. Spending more time researching other users will allow me to pick the best people possible to receive our delegation. And three, it can be stressful putting so much pressure on yourself to create a post everyday. So this change will allow me to better enjoy my time here on Steemit, and allow me to help others at the same time.
Does this mean that I won't have periods of posting blogs and videos every day? No, of course not. Sometimes I get on a roll and there's just no stopping me. Like my recent trip to South East Asia where I thought I would be taking a little break here and there. LOL, yeah I should've known better. I posted almost every day (sometimes 2 or 3 times a day) for 5 weeks straight!
But I think I've reached a point with my channel where it's important that I really start to give back more. And the best way to do that is to find great content and share the love with those authors via upvotes and resteems! So, even if I am creating a lot of content, I will try my best to spend just as much time curating other people's posts.
This also means that I'm doing away with the Random Comment Reward which I use to offer on all of my posts. I would upvote a random person every day with a pretty hefty vote percentage. But why upvote only one person when I can upvote a bunch of you!? Even better, I can upvote the comments that I feel are the best! So that's what I'll be doing from here on out. More upvotes for all. 😁
Witness Duties
When I set out to become a Steem witness, I knew there would be duties that came along with the "position". Among these are maintaining both a seed and witness server, staying up-to-date with the latest security patches and blockchain releases, keeping an accurate price feed, and staying plugged into the witness channels on steem.chat so I know what's going on at all times. There are several things I'm leaving out here, but you can see that we really have to be on top of things if we want to keep our votes.
As a witness though, I feel I could do more with my time to benefit the blockchain. And that's why a week ago I announced that I would be learning Javascript as my first programming language. This will allow me to work with steem.js and create several apps and tools for my fellow content creators. I'm also going to be speeding up this process by working with a programmer to bring some of my ideas to life faster! Yes, I've got several ideas already and I don't want to wait to get these out to you guys!
I've also been spending quite a bit of time in steem.chat helping other witnesses get their servers up and online. This is the most rewarding thing I've probably done as a witness so far because I KNOW how frustrating it can be to work with the blockchain as a complete beginner. So it feels great to be able to help others get setup. And I plan to continue putting quite a bit of time into socializing and working with the other witnesses.
Should You Rethink Your Steemit Gameplan?
Maybe. Maybe not. I think it's totally up to each individual what they're wanting to give to (and get back) from the Steem blockchain. If you would've asked me 8 months ago what my plans for Steemit were, I wouldn't have even been able to tell you. Because I didn't know what in the world I was doing! LOL, I was just learning everything there is to know here and finding my footing. All I knew is that I loved this blockchain (and social media platform) and I planned to invest a lot of time and money into it. I had never seen anything like it before in all my years online. I still haven't seen anything to compete with it to this day!
So over time I will continue to reshape my path here to ensure I'm doing all that I can to make the most of this experience. And I plan to share these changes with all of you as we move forward. I know many of you wish you could go back two years ago and join Steemit when the currency was only pennies. But RIGHT NOW is the next best time to get started here! And I'm glad we joined when we did, because we're still VERY early on and have LOADS to look forward to! 😎
If you want to support my work
Please vote @brandonfrye for witness.
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Evolution os always necessary to grow as what has gotten you this far is not necessarily what will take you to the next level. I am taking a similar approach in that I do not want to force post everyday and sacrifice quality so I rather spend time engaging and learning within the community. This past month has opened my eyes to some great content that I may have never seen if I did not go outside my interest and engaged. I see STEEM as being a long term investment and by helping the community grow, I can also achieve benefits for my position. So I look forward to continuing this journey and seeing where it takes you as well!
That's so true. And you bring up another good point about posting too often; it can lead to a drop in quality. That's another thing I had to consider for myself. I'd rather have better posts, less often.
I have also taken notice of your efforts with #minnowuprising. Most likely, your participation with other minnows has inadvertently caused me to take a look at what more I can do. Funny how things work out like that. But you're absolutely right, this is a long-term investment where we'll only see a payoff if the blockchain and its community succeed. So let's take care of it and what it grow! :)
Steem is SO amazing. It is a whole new world of opportunity that has completely changed my life. I am fortunate to have found and connected with cool Steemians like you Brandon who are out to serve and give back to the community.
The sky is the limit on this blockchain and we are in the right place at the right time. Thank you for contributing at such a high level and I look forward to continuing this journey along side you. Cheers 🥂
-Ken
Posted using Partiko iOS
Thank you Ken for the kind words. I'm lucky to have met you as well! This is a remarkable time we live in. A new technology which has brought together so many people, and created so many different possibilities. Just on this one blockchain (Steem) you can participate in so many different ways.
Here's to a very bright future for all of us!! :)
Dude, Partiko App is amazing. Thanks for promoting it.
I'm still relatively new to Steem it (about two months now) So I still have a long ways to go and a lot to learn. I'm definitely willing to but in the time though, creating content.
I actually enjoy that curation part of Steemit. Giving honest and personal responses to other people work helps me become a better writer. Helping each other will benefit us all and not only financially. I enjoy being a part of this community and I want to see it grow and prosper.
That's probably the best thing you can do right now. I've noticed that even if you do have a following elsewhere, you'll need to build again here, because this is a totally different ecosystem. But it's so awesome once you've done that. There are some incredible people here that I couldn't have met anywhere else.
Keep up the great work and keep posting, posting, posting!! :)
I have change my modus of operandi on here too. At one point was posting twice a day, running three different contest/community building initiatives, and leaving loads of comments. Just not sustainable. Good to keep things sustainable and balanced:)
Agreed! Finding that balance is important and often a tricky thing to do. Ever since I started here I have been compelled to post, post, and post some more LOL. It would really be hard for me to run out of content here, but as you know there are so many other things to do on the blockchain. And creating posts every single day is extremely time-consuming. I'd rather use some of that time for other things. :)
:)
Focus on you man and don’t get too burned out lol I know how hard it is to come up with content each and everyday.
And like you said. there is so much to experience here on the blockchain it’s not just ‘blogging’.
Looking forward to seeing those development projects too man!
Posted using Partiko iOS
Right on man! Yeah, burnout is a serious thing. I've heard stories of famous YouTubers and bloggers crash and burn and lose everything, because they refused to take time for themselves. I definitely don't want to go that route.
And what's funny is we have no reason to feel so pressured to create content here. There are so many other great authors here to reward for their work (like yourself). So I plan to do more rewarding in the coming months, years. :)
Btw, see you're using Partiko. That's the best app I've found for Steemit and they take ZERO beneficiary rewards. I'm gonna have to give them a review before too long.
yeah i’m in love with it. so easy to use and functional. best experience i’ve had with a mobile app here.
Posted using Partiko iOS
Right on! Thanks so much for your help the last few days on my witness node.
It feels good to be a bigger part of the blockchain. I look forward to seeing your dev projects coming soon.
Posted using Partiko Android
Absolutely man! I'm still waiting to hear back from you to see where you're at. I think we're not to far away from seeing your Steem Witness Application post!! :)
Hey Brandon, good for you! One of these days we should do a mini Steemit meetup here in AZ. I know here are several of us here in AZ. And maybe we could entice some folks from the neighboring states to come too. It would be pretty cool. haha. Anyways look forward to your posts when you make them. For me, my normal work happens to be slow, so I am taking advantage of that time to do more here on Steemit, but that may change as work changes. haha.
That's not a bad idea, although it would be tough to get anybody out here with these temps! LOL
We might have to really consider doing something like that. Would be really neat to meetup with Steemians from California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and so on. Share ideas and bring others to the meetup who are interested in crypto but haven't gotten their feet wet yet. I think Steemit is the perfect way to do just that.
Yeah that would be awesome! Maybe a early fall event when it isn't as warm. We could call it the Southwest SteemMeet or something like that. Since I don't think we can use the name SteemFest. Yeah we could do some seminars maybe on crypto, basic cryptocurrency knowledge type stuff, like you said to help people that are there who don't know as much about crypto learn more about it. I think it would be interesting to do a pole on Steemit and find out how many of the Steemians don't know much about crypto and then how many are like experts in it. Oh and yes, we could invite new people who may be interested in crypto, and expose them to Steemit!
I like your posts but can understand why you would want to cut back with all that you do for steemit. As far as I can see I am not sure how you do all of what you do already.
Yeah, for example. This post took me roughly two hours to put together (because I'm a perfectionist LOL). In that same amount of time I could have read several posts, left comments, and upvoted (possibly resteemed) a few. So while I REALLY enjoy making content, I'm going to start trading off a little of that time for curation.
I honestly think this will naturally improve my own visibility anyways, even though that's not my goal here. All about finding a healthy balance. :)
Seeing where someone puts their time is being able to understand the heart of the person. It's amazing how we always find time for that which is a priority to us and say we do not have enough time when it comes to what we procrastinate..
Reshaping path is a continuous process with the experience you are gaining on Steemit everyday. As a senior Steemian what you right really thought-provoking and enlighten us greatly.