Richard Gillespie - Musician. Gamer. Blogger.

How To Stop Procrastinating

Post author By richardgillespie
Post date November 24, 2020

This photo shows the hands of a person using a smartphone. If you are wondering how to stop procrastination then taking a break from social media apps can be a good idea.

In this blog post we will discuss ideas regarding how to stop procrastinating. Procrastination is a huge problem that prevents many of us from maximizing productivity and getting work done. Whether you are a student or creative professional, it can often be hard to stop procrastinating and get down to work. In this blog post I will discuss various techniques and mindsets to help you break out of this unproductive habit of procrastination.

How To Stop Procrastinating

If you are engaged in any kind of creative activity, you will understand how easy it is to get into a cycle of procrastination. We know in our mind we need to do something, but we neglect to actually get down to work. Instead of getting busy with what we need to do, often we will look for distractions to pass the time. This is a way of delaying the inevitable work that we have to do. Unfortunately, if you are a freelance writer or content creator, this procrastination can really lead to a lack of productivity quickly. Let’s discuss why you should limit the amount of time you spend procrastinating and start focusing on productive activities instead.

Procrastination Limits Success

If you spend the majority of your time procrastinating you will limit your ability to succeed in life. When I was studying in University, I spent quite a bit of time procrastinating. I knew I had assignments that needed to be done, but I would often put them off until the last minute. You may be able to get away with this kind of activity in an academic setting, but it will rarely serve you well in the real world. If you are a freelance writer who spends most of their day procrastinating and only a small portion of the day writing, it will likely be quite hard to succeed. So how do you motivate yourself to stop procrastinating and instead focus on your creative activities? You need to realize that there is no reward for procrastination.

No Reward For Procrastination

Whenever you are sitting there, scrolling through social media instead of being creative, remember; there is no reward for procrastination. If you sit around procrastinating all day, I can pretty much guarantee that you will not be successful. As I mentioned in my last article, hard work is the key to success. You need to work very hard in order to achieve greatness in today’s competitive environment. If you are spending most of your day procrastinating, how can you rise to the challenges of our modern age? You will not be rewarded for idly browsing social media or news websites. Those news websites and social media sites will actually make money off of you spending time on their sites. Start spending time creating your own content instead.

No Pain = No Gain

It can often feel easier and more enjoyable to consume content rather than be the one producing it. Often we fall into the trap of simply consuming media but not producing it ourselves. This is a negative trap that will hurt us financially if we are not careful. Perhaps many people simply have no desire to be writers or content creators of any kind. If you are one of those people then this article may not apply to you. However, if you are someone that wants to create content for a living, beware of the trap of consuming too much of other people’s content. If you consume too much content from other writers and creators it will limit the time and energy you have to create your own productions. I have written about this concept before in the past and you can read that article here.

The Key To Stop Procrastination

The main sources of distraction when you are trying to get things done tend to be various types of outside media sources. Social media companies, online video websites, advertisers and others are spending millions of dollars annually in hopes that you spend more time on the internet consuming content. When you have something to do in life and you feel like distracting yourself, it is far too easy to scroll to a myriad of websites and lose hours of time in the process. That is precious time wasted that you could have spent working on your artistic craft. While you should spend some time researching various topics online if you are a writer, it can become a problem if too much time is spent.

Conclusion

You have to realize that no real reward will arise from spending hours scrolling through various social media websites. You need to focus on your priorities. There are most likely various goals and activities that you personally want to achieve in life. You don’t have time to keep up with the activities of every actor or celebrity. You need to focus on yourself, first and foremost. Spend at least as much time creating your own content as you do consuming the content of others. If you are spending most of the day consuming the content of other people then you are generally not going to be the best content creator you can be.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog and have a great day.

Tags how to, procrastination

Business Ideas Motivation

Hard Work Is The Key To Success

Post author By richardgillespie
Post date November 21, 2020

In this article, I will write about why hard work is the key to success in business and life. This may seem obvious, the harder you work, the more you will achieve. However, many people in life are often looking for a shortcut to success. While a few people may get lucky and win various sorts of lotteries in life, I believe that for the majority of people; hard work is the key to success. Let’s expand on this idea a bit more.

Hard Work Is The Key To Success

In previous articles I have written about how consistency is key when you are engaging in media production and business activities. You must put forth a consistent level of hard work in order to succeed in society today. Successful entrepreneurs like Mark Cuban have stated in interviews that he believes hard work is the key to success. Think about it for a moment. Whenever you engage in any kind of business activity you are rarely operating in a “vacuum” as Mark Cuban describes it. There are always competitive forces around you. You always need to outwork your competition in order to succeed.

People Respect Work Ethic

When you see someone working hard to achieve their goals, it can be inspiring. People tend to respect others who have worked hard to achieve what they did, rather than someone who simply got very lucky. Imagine a co-worker who wins a large lottery and quits their job. The co-workers who have to remain working at that job may resent the lottery winning co-worker and their newly found wealth. This is why I believe you should not always seek to get ahead in life by some kind of lucky or extremely risky tactic. Sometimes you may get lucky here and there in life and business, but you should not bet on it. Count on the fact that working hard will bring you success. That’s a guarantee you can be sure of.

Winners Work Hard

Billionaire founder of Tesla, Elon Musk, has stated similar sentiments in the past about the power of hard work. In interviews he has said that you can accomplish in 4 months what would take someone else a year if you work 100 hours per week. Watch the video clip below to hear Elon talk about the power of hard work when asked about how to succeed as an entrepreneur.

So don’t just take my word for it. Billionaires like Mark Cuban and Elon Musk are telling you the exact same thing. The key to success is hard work. The only other way you might get successful is by luck, and you don’t want to bank on luck. You want to do what you know works, and that’s hard work.

Conclusion

So if you’re an entrepreneur of any kind you need to realize this fact. Success will not magically materialize by itself. You need to put in the work. Focus, work hard, and success will happen. You just need to be consistent, vigilant, and never give up. I believe if we all work hard we can achieve. Thank you for reading this blog today and let’s all keep our heads down and get to work on achieving our dreams and goals for the future.

Tags business, life, success

Business Ideas Life

Don’t Work For Free

Post author By richardgillespie
Post date November 17, 2020

In this blog post I will write about how you should not work for people for free. This article will mainly pertain to freelancers such as musicians, photographers, bloggers, and others. The essential idea is that you should not give away your talents and energies to other people without compensation. There are many businesses and individuals who will try to take advantage of you, if you let them. Don’t be a pawn in someone else’s game.

Don’t work for free

You may have found this article by googling “don’t work for free” or something along those lines. Maybe you have had similar experiences to the ones that I have had. Throughout my life, people have tried to take advantage of me in various ways. As a musician, certain promoters used to often try to get me to play for free in their clubs. Now, as I branch out into freelance writing, I have experienced a similar scenario. People wanting you to do work for them, but when it comes time to pay you, it becomes rather difficult to receive the funds. Let’s go over some reasons why you should not work for free.

Exploitation is wrong

The first reason why you should not work for free is simply because it is morally wrong. People should not feel entitled to use you to build their businesses without paying you. The philosopher Immanuel Kant believed that it is unethical for one human to use another human being as simply a “means to an end”. In other words, you shouldn’t ask people to do things for you without any kind of benefit to themselves whatsoever. This kind of exploitation is actually illegal so do not put up with it as a freelancer. Always stand up for yourself.

People will try to exploit you

People will attempt to exploit you as a freelancer. There are people out there who will try to get you to do work for them for free without paying you. Again, I will repeat; don’t work for free! There are all kinds of unscrupulous individuals out there just waiting to take advantage of you. Individuals who simply “forget” their wallet at home when it comes time to pay at a restaurant. People in business who just neglect to read the part of your email where you ask for payment. These are the kinds of people you should avoid in business and life. If someone other than a charitable organization is expecting you to work for them for free then this is a scam and this person does not respect you or your time.

Stand your ground

Don’t allow these kinds of exploitative and manipulative people get you to do any kind of work for them for free. If the person who is asking you to do work for them refuses to pay you then simply refuse to work for them ever again. I apologize if this blog post comes across in an irritated manner. Let me explain what recently happened to me.

Recently, I was contacted by an individual to write blog posts for their website. When I asked for payment this person simply ignored it and asked me to write another blog post for them. This kind of conduct is infuriating to me and I will probably never work with this person again.

Conclusion

Don’t work for free. Do not allow yourself to be exploited by people. Believe me they will try. If unethical individuals can get away with not paying you, they will. As a freelancer; always make sure you are getting paid. Don’t let exploiters take advantage of you. People will try to use you. Demand to be paid. Don’t let them take advantage of you.

Tags productivity, work

Ideas Life Motivation

Believing in Yourself: Building Confidence

Post author By richardgillespie
Post date November 3, 2020

You need to start believing in yourself as an artist or content creator. If you do not have the confidence to create, you will stop doing so. Creativity is not difficult, we have just been told that it is. Anyone can be an artist or content creator, you just need to be in the right frame of mind.

Believing in Yourself

We have been programmed to believe that only certain special people get the right to be creative. Some people think that in order to be an artist, you need to study at art school. I recently told someone that I might like to try my hand at creating visual art. This person told me “if only you could take a course in that…”

Why do some people make us feel that we are always inadequate in some way and that we need to pay or study with someone else in order to make us adequate?

I feel like this is part of the problem with modern society. People make a living off of teaching us that we are somehow inadequate and that we need others to educate us properly. Some college students go deeply into debt to study art under the assumption that they are not quite good enough. For example, it currently costs $75,000 per year to go to Harvard University. If a musician or artist was good enough, why would they need to pay a prestigious institution in order to be educated on what is “good” or “bad” art? I’m not saying these institutions are bad but they do have a vested interest in the idea that we are not yet complete without their help. This is why I think you need to start believing in yourself and your own instincts more.

Not Quite Good Enough

Forget those people who ever told you that you were not quite good enough. You do not need those kinds of people in your life. As a musician or artist, you are perfectly fine just as you are. Keep creating the music and art that you want to create. Quit trying to mold yourself into what other people would like you to be. You will never be perfect enough for these people. Create the kinds of music and art that you want to create. Period. Do not try to settle up to someone else’s version of perfection. You will be left unsatisfied in the end.

Be Confident in Who You Are

Creativity should not be difficult. If you are having to strain to create something then maybe you are not creating something you enjoy. Creativity should flow easily and naturally. If it was painful for you to create something then it may end up being somewhat painful for the person who has to experience your creation. In other words, if you had to struggle and strain to create something, chances are it won’t be enjoyed as much by the person who experiences it. Imagine a musician who actually doesn’t enjoy the music they are making. They may trick some people into enjoying their music but it will not be genuine and that musician will soon stop creating.

Creative Flow

The key to being creative is to having a good creative flow. You need to remove the critics in the back of your head while you create. There will always be those negative voices in your head as you create something. You might have thoughts like “this sounds bad” or “no one will like this music”. Try to ignore those thoughts and let your creativity flow naturally. Silence those critics in your head and just create. Imagine if every time you went to create music, you went back and looked at it in a negative light. You would soon stop creating. Stop criticizing your own music and art. Create it and put it out. Let the world decide if they like it or not.

Conclusion

Overall, you need to start believing in yourself more. In order to be creative, you need to silence those negative critics in your head which keep telling you that you can not do something. You are not inadequate. You’re already a great creator. Just create. You are not a creator if you do not create so stop letting those negative critics in your head prevent you from doing so. Start being creative now. The world needs your creativity. It doesn’t need to be perfect. Just be yourself and let your creativity flow.

Business Twitch Uncategorized Video Games

Twitch Affiliate: How To Become One

Post author By richardgillespie
Post date October 8, 2020

Are you a new streamer on Twitch or someone who is thinking about starting a Twitch channel? Are you looking for tips and advice on how to reach “affiliate” status on Twitch? I will do my best in this blog to offer the best tips I can on how you can reach Twitch Affiliate status. You can check out my Twitch channel here. I just recently became a Twitch Affiliate so I thought I would write this knowledge down while it is still fresh on my mind. I hope these tips can help you.

Twitch Affiliate

Let’s get into some tips and advice for reaching Twitch Affiliate status. First of all, what is the Twitch Affiliate program? Basically, this is how you begin to earn revenue from your Twitch channel. When you first start out on Twitch it is not possible to earn money directly from Twitch itself, outside of donations that people might send you through PayPal, for example. The Twitch affiliate program allows you to begin to have people subscribe to your channel. People can also cheer you on by sending you “bits”, a form of digital donation, during your streams. These are ways you earn monthly income from your Twitch channel. Let’s discuss how someone becomes a Twitch affiliate.

Becoming a Twitch Affiliate

So you have decided to take your Twitch streaming to the next level and go for affiliate status on Twitch. Sometimes this is referred to as “being on the affiliate grind”. Reaching Twitch affiliate may come easily to you or may require some consistent effort to obtain. I’ve seen some people who obtain the status of Twitch affiliate very quickly, while there are others like me who took months of solid grinding to reach the status. I will give you some tips and advice on how to potentially reach affiliate faster and hopefully start to earn some income sooner. This is imperative if you have bills, a family to support, student loans, or more.

Tips and Advice

First you should get clearly into your head that this is your goal. It can be hard to obtain a goal unless you clearly set that goal in your mind or write it down. There are 4 requirements that you must meet in order to become a Twitch affiliate. We will go over those requirements now and how to obtain them. This information is current as of October of 2020. Twitch affiliate requirements may change over time.

Requirements for Affiliate

Here are the four current requirements for reaching Twitch affiliate status. If these requirements change in the future, modify your tactics to adapt to the new paradigm. This is directly from the Twitch website which I will link to here.

(1) At least 500 total minutes broadcast in the last 30 days:

This is fairly straightforward. You just need to make sure you broadcast at least 8.4 hours in the last 30 days. This is totally in your control. Unless you have a crazily hectic and busy life. In that case you might need to rethink becoming a Twitch Affiliate streamer. The process does take some time. Think about how much you like to play video games and make sure this is a worthwhile activity for you before investing too much time into this.

(2) At least 7 unique broadcast days in the last 30 days:

Again this is a fairly straight forward requirement. If you can only manage one marathon streaming day a month but are unable to stream on other days then you cannot reach affiliate at this time. You need to make sure you are broadcasting at least 7 times in the last 30 days so try to focus on running at least 2 streams a week to stay consistent. Consistency is key. Make sure you are running frequent broadcasts to clear this particular part of the affiliate process.

The more challenging requirements

(3) At least 50 Followers:

This is again a very straightforward requirement. This one may or may not be difficult for you. Some people already have large followings on other social media platforms. They can simply promote themselves on these platforms and potentially reach 50 followers very quickly. Personally, I do not have large followings on other social media platforms so I actually had to stream longer and use Twitch as a platform itself to gain new followers.

Larger Twitch streamers on YouTube like Harris Heller and others have mentioned the importance of creating content on other social media platforms in order to gain followers. I agree that this is very important. You should be posting videos to TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter as well to attract attention to your channel.

(4) An average of 3 concurrent viewers or more over the last 30 days

This is the requirement that I have seen cause people the most difficulty in trying to obtain. The reason is that it often seems to be somewhat simple for people to obtain followers, and it is not terribly difficult to meet the time based streaming requirements in terms of the duration of how long you stream. The real challenge seems to be in maintaining an average viewer count of above 3. Let me provide you a simple solution to this problem. Stream on Twitch less! Let’s break down in the next section of this article why this can be an effective strategy to reach affiliate.

Less is more

Maintaining 3 average viewers over all of your broadcasts in the past 30 days can be difficult if you are streaming for many hours each day. When you are streaming for up to 8 hours a day as a new streamer, sometimes only 1 or 2 people will be tuning in. This is actually damaging for your chances of reaching affiliate quickly. If you stream for 80 hours a month, you will have to have an average of 3 viewers tuning in for all 80 of those hours in that month. This can be difficult for newer streamers. The solution is to stream less, build up hype for your broadcasts, and set a schedule. Let’s talk about these points a bit more in depth before we close out this article.

Schedule and Promote

Here’s my advice to you. Stream for a while without thinking about average viewers too much. However, keep an eye on the times when people are tuning in the most. Next, set up a strict schedule of broadcasts which sync up to the times when your followers are tuning in most often. Eventually your followers will begin to know that those are the times at which you stream and they will tend to tune in more frequently around those times. Promote your broadcast on other platforms as well such as Twitter. Finally, if you are having trouble reaching the average viewers needed for affiliate, call up a friend or family member and tell them to please tune in. Explain to them the situation and tell them that you’d really appreciate their help. They may actually end up enjoying your broadcast.

Conclusion

Reaching the Twitch Affiliate status is not something that came easily to me but I hope these tips can help you out. Try not to see it as too much of a grind. Have fun with it. Hopefully some of these tips can help you reach Twitch Affiliate soon. All the best, good luck, and if you read this article and want to say hello to me on Twitch, I currently stream Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 3 PM Eastern Standard Time.

Here’s the link to my Twitch channel once more.

Thanks again for taking the time to read this blog. Have a great day!

Tags affiliate, streaming, twitch

Blogging How To Writing

Freelance Writer: How to Get Started

Post author By richardgillespie
Post date September 22, 2020

In this blog post I will write about how to get started as a freelance writer. Are you someone who enjoys to write? Did you know you can potentially turn your passion into a paid career? Let me explain how this can work and some steps you can take to get started in the field of freelance writing.

Freelance Writer

First, let’s discuss some reasons why you may want to work as a freelance writer. One reason to start a business as a freelance writer is that you can literally work whenever and wherever you want in the world. Generally, when a client needs a piece of writing done, it is not essential that you live in the same city as them for the work to be accomplished. Freelance writing is also a good career path to think about if you do not like having to commute to work every day. If you can write articles from the comfort of your home there is no need to commute. Not having a daily commute saves you time and money, and lowers your carbon footprint as well. Finally, if you love writing, getting to work in a field you enjoy is a very rewarding experience.

Why Companies Need Writers

Companies of all shapes and sizes are in need of content creators to create blogs and articles for their websites. The reason for this is simple. When you go to a search engine and attempt to find a product or service, Google will give advantage to websites which have new and fresh content posted to them often. I have written in the past about SEO and why it is important to be consistent with your blog content. The reason for this is straightforward. In order to drive traffic to websites, companies need to create “traction”. They need to create a lot of content so that search engines will give them preference over other websites.

Imagine you have two competing websites. Both have existed on the internet for one year. The first website gets updated once a month. In total it has 12 blog posts. The next website gets updated once a week and consequently has 52 blog posts by the end of the year. Which website do you think Google will rank higher when it decides which website to recommend to users? Remember, Google wants to deliver users to high quality websites with rich amounts of content. If your website is rarely updated, it does not send a good impression to search engines, readers, or customers.

How To Get Started

So, how do you actually get started as a freelance writer? I’ll give you some tips. First, you should start up your own blog and start creating some content as soon as possible. People are unlikely to hire you for freelance writing work unless you can display your abilities first. Try to get a website domain that is your name, like the one I am using here at www.RichardGillespie.ca. Next, it is time to start creating content for your blog. The more quality content you create, the more search engines will direct content to your blogs. It’s that simple. Be consistent and write about your passions. If you love video games, blog about gaming every day. It is possible that a company may contact you one day to review their video game. You never know what can happen.

Additional Tips

If you need to improve your writing abilities, try taking writing courses at your local college. I honed my writing ability while completing an undergraduate philosophy degree at a local university. Students were expected to have impeccable argumentative and writing ability in order to earn successful grades. I found that this strong emphasis on constant writing definitely honed my ability but completing an entire writing focused degree may not be necessary for you to start as a freelance writer. Simply taking some basic college courses or studying YouTube tutorials on writing can help. The most important piece of advice I can offer is to simply get started. Do not delay. Start creating today.

Begin creating content for your website now so you can draw visitors to your site who may require your freelance writing skills.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article and I hope you enjoyed these tips. Do not overthink your content. Just go for it!

Have a great day.

Tags blogging, seo, Writing

Time Management Twitch Video Games

Best Time To Stream On Twitch

Post author By richardgillespie
Post date September 13, 2020

As a newer broadcaster on Twitch, I keep asking myself the question “what is the best time to stream on Twitch?”

In this article I hope to provide some answers for you based on what I have experienced and thought about lately.

Best Time to Stream on Twitch

First, I’d like to stress the importance of having a stream schedule on Twitch. If you look at most major streamers, they all have certain set times in which viewers can look forward to their broadcasts starting. When I first started streaming video games, I just went live whenever I wanted, and as often as I wanted. I was trying to build up followers on my stream. I’d heard of the idea of setting a stream schedule but never realized how important it actually is. I’ll discuss later why having a streaming schedule is so important. Just remember, before you start considering the best times to stream on Twitch, make sure you focus on having it be a consistent streaming schedule.

How often should you stream?

Personally, I would recommend not streaming every single day. I did this for a while and I did start to burn out. Try to have at least two days a week when you do not stream. This can give your mind a refresh and you will come back to the stream after feeling more energized. Think about your favorite television shows, they generally do not have new episodes which air every single day. Television programs sometimes have 5 new episodes per week, but generally a show will not have a new episode for every single day of the week. You do not have to stream every day. Again, look at what the pros do, they take breaks.

Try to be like a TV show

Although many of us no longer watch television in a traditional way, there are still lessons that can be learned from the television era. Television broadcasts usually always have set times in which they start. This allows for individuals to tune into their favorite show at their leisure and the viewer can know when the broadcast is set to start. Viewers can then plan their day around watching the broadcast. If you are a streamer who goes live randomly and at different times each day, it becomes difficult for viewers and fans to calculate when you might be going live. Again, try to stick to a consistent schedule when you stream on Twitch.

Best times to go live

This can depend on where you live. Let’s say you live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This would be in the Eastern Standard Time zone. From personal experience, I’ve been noticing that 3-4 PM EST is a good time to start your broadcast if you live in this time zone. If you have viewers in the UK, it would be around 8PM in their time zone at this time. This is still early enough for UK viewers to tune in to your broadcast while simultaneously reaching your North American audience.

Here is my new streaming schedule on Twitch so you can get an example of the stream schedule that I am currently using. I have decided I will now go live on Twitch on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, at 3PM Eastern Standard Time.

Previously, I was going live on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 4PM-6PM and then again at 8PM-10PM EST. What I noticed with this schedule is that I was potentially streaming too often and too late at night. Having two different streams in a day started to feel like I was doing a bit too much and I was beginning to feel tired by 9:30 PM. Also, I noticed viewers dropping off around 9-10PM, so this was not good for channel growth. Additionally, 8PM EST is 2AM in the UK, so this is not a good time for me to be streaming for my UK viewers. I believe that my new stream schedule will be better for most viewers who regularly tune in. Always consider your audience.

Conclusion

The time at which you start your stream is ultimately up to you, but I would like you to remember a few guidelines. Stick to a schedule, stream earlier rather than later, and limit the amount of days per week you stream. While it can be tempting to stream every single day, I would recommend taking some time away from your stream each week, while sticking to a consistent schedule of earlier rather than later start times. Starting earlier in the day will leave you with more energy as well. Save your evenings for relaxation and rest. It can be hard to sleep immediately after an intense round of video gaming as well.

Even with the set streaming schedule you can still go live randomly from time to time and surprise your followers. Just remember that breaks are important. Broadcasting can take a lot of energy from you. Don’t forget to take breaks in order to maintain longevity as a streamer and avoid burnout.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article and I hope these tips can help you decide the best time to stream on twitch. Have a great day.

www.Twitch.tv/RichardGillespie

Addiction Health Social Media

Social Media Addiction: Understanding The Problem

Post author By richardgillespie
Post date August 17, 2020

Social media is designed to be addictive. Many of us are hooked on it. In this post I will write about social media addiction. Companies purposefully design these apps to be addictive. How can we combat this time consuming addiction?

Social Media

Social media companies have long understood the power of trying to keep you hooked on their apps. Facebook, for example, knows that the longer you spend on their app, the more advertisements you will see. Companies like TikTok use algorithms to get you to spend more time on their app. One way companies do this is by using what is called A/B testing. Let’s understand how this works.

A/B Testing

In order to keep you using a social app or website longer, companies will engage in what is known as A/B testing. This is where one subset (group A) of users of the web site is shown a particular version of the site, while another set (group B) is shown a different version of the site. Using data analytics, companies can decipher which version of the website users have spent the most time on. Then they will modify the website to the version that users spent more time on. Companies do this to maximize the time individuals will spend on the website. This is done to increase profits for the business which is running the platform.

Addictive Algorithms

Once we understand how there are powerful algorithms set up within the apps and websites that we use in order to keep us using them, we can begin to untangle from this addictive matrix. Knowledge is power. Knowing is half of the battle. Once we know how we are being subtly manipulated into using these social apps, we can begin to resist them. Companies with billions of dollars invested in them to keep us using these apps are obviously going to hire the best minds in order to make these platforms increasingly more addictive. Do not forget about the simple pleasures and joys that people used to have before social media addiction.

Positives of Social Media

Social media does have positive aspects to it, especially in situations like COVID-19 lock downs. It can be a great way to communicate with relatives who are far away. Online social platforms can be great for launching businesses as well. It is just important to resist the negative aspects so they do not outweigh the positive ones. Take time away from social media and try to spend it with real people. It is a lot more natural than staring at a screen all day.

Conclusion

Combating social media addiction is something that many of us need to work on. Especially if you are working as a content creator. It is hard to create content consistently if you are constantly consuming it.

If you need in depth help battling social media addiction, I would recommend checking out this book written by the addiction experts at Allen Carr. The book is called “Smart Phone, Dumb Phone – Free Yourself From Digital Addiction.”

You can purchase a copy of the book here. It explains more in depth how these companies aim to get us hooked on our devices and ways that we can aim to break free. I highly recommend it.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog and have a great day.

Tags addiction, socialmedia, time management

Ideas Motivation Psychology

Daily Routine: Building Good Habits

Post author By richardgillespie
Post date August 15, 2020

Building up a good daily routine is very important. Have you ever noticed how when you do something one day, you tend to repeat it the next day? It is easy to get into the habit of doing something. Our daily routine may contain good and bad habits. The key is to building a routine with many positive habitual actions while trying to reduce negative activities.

Daily Routine

If you start building good habits each day, it becomes easier to repeat those actions over time. Someone who has the habit of waking up daily and exercising will find it easier to do so than someone who does not have that routine. Why not start building good habits into your daily routine? It can improve your life, make you healthier, and more successful in your career. In a previous article I have written about the power of consistently taking action towards achieving your goals. You can not have consistency without building a positive daily habitual routine.

Make a list

Try making a list of all your bad habits and try to replace them with good activities. Perhaps your room is a mess and you never make your bed. Try getting into the habit of making your bed each morning. It will make your room tidier and it’s a good productive activity to start the day. Are you sometimes in a hurry and you skip breakfast? That can become a negative habit as well. Force yourself to eat a solid breakfast each morning, and it will soon become an ingrained habit. There are many unhealthy activities in our daily routine that we can work to change each day. Think about what habits you want to modify and go from there.

Conclusion

If you want to improve your life, you need to build good habits. A daily routine containing positive actions will lead to a more productive and fulfilled life. Take time to critically assess yourself and your behaviors. Which actions in your life are unnecessarily dragging you down and harming your health? Work to improve your habits and you can improve your life.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog. Have a great day.

Tags daily routine, habit, time management

Ideas Motivation Psychology

Passion: Do What You Love To Do

Post author By richardgillespie
Post date August 7, 2020

In this blog I will write about the power of really following your passion and doing what you love to do. It seems like an obvious thing but let’s expand this a bit more deeply. This idea was recently brought to my attention by author Gary Vaynerchuk. He talks about the idea that people are not really lazy, they just do not like what they are currently doing in life. In other words, individuals are often not passionate about what they try to do in life, and then wonder why they do not succeed.

Passion

Once you listen to Gary talk about this idea, you understand it, it makes sense. Let me explain how it relates to me. Sometimes I feel really uninspired to make music. I’m not sure why I have this pressure to produce music. At one point, I had a goal to be a successful music producer. If I am not pursuing that goal, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I am lazy. Maybe, deep down, I am just not as passionate about being a music producer as I used to be. That’s okay. Passions can change over time. They say that once you find your true passion it does not feel like work. If making music is starting to feel like work, then maybe it is not my passion.

Finding what you enjoy

If you could make a living and have it not feel at all like work, what would you be doing? Writing, for me, seems like a fairly enjoyable to make an income. For others it might not be their passion. What’s cool about writing is that you can basically do it until the day you die. Even if you are unable to physically type words into a computer, you could record yourself and have it transcribed into written word. In tough times, our thoughts and ideas are often what we are left with. You can almost always find something new to write about. Think about what you love to do that doesn’t feel at all like work, this is your passion.

Conclusion

I am going to keep this blog post very short today to enforce the point of this article. Writing a super long blog post today would feel like work to me, and probably feel like work to you as a reader as well. Keep what you do enjoyable, but don’t overdo it. If you love being a DJ, go for it, but don’t DJ 18 hours a day, you’ll burn out. Everything in moderation.

Tags ideas, life, passion