My wife sent me an article recently discussing Stephen Covey’s principles of the urgent vs the important.
If you are not familiar with the concept, the urgent are items that demand our attention immediately but are not important to our success.
The important items are those that move us forward as individuals or as an organization - they may not seem urgent, but they become urgent if we neglect them.
What sparked my writing imagination after reading the piece was a simple question. Where does Steemit fall in the urgent and important?
Investing Versus Spending Mentality
I believe Steemit can fall into either category. Much like other social media outlets, it depends on what we have determined we want to accomplish with the tool.
If we are only scrolling through Steemit articles, not engaging with people, and not upvoting posts then our time spent is no better than being on Facebook.
Steemit can also fall into the urgent category if we are allowing it to run our day. Checking our Steemit feed or replying to comments to avoid important tasks can be a problem.
I enjoy manual curating, and thus urgent versus important is a tough line for me to balance. It is easy to spend an hour on upvoting posts and reading a few of them that catch my fancy through the day.
However, that hour can take away from my daytime work, and the people who need my attention during peak creative hours.
The happy balance that works for me, is scrolling through my Steemit feed and upvoting throughout the day. I treat that time as a reward for finishing small tasks on my work list. Those small tasks also constitute a small amount of time I spend on Steemit during the day.
Most of my reading I save for the evenings. The esteem app has a nifty save feature where I can keep articles that I want to invest time into - my friends are important to me and they deserve my full attention.
I’m not saying I have this down to a science or that it is easy, but it is my attempt to keep the important things and the urgent in their proper place.
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There is a whole new "breed" of steemians who fall into this category
I am amazed at the numbers who comment everywhere and don't upvote anyone except themselves mostly. Are there new rules somewhere that suggest this kind of interaction?
I treat Steemit like an investment first, social network second. It's not a pay to play platform but everyone who comments on a post really ought to invest a percentage to the poster. Otherwise they will become known as mooches for receiving comment rewards on the backs of those who put the post out.
Now that I have that off my chest :)
The time part of Steemit is tricky. It's easy to let the day get away with you if you don't watch it. I know some people are on here pretty much all the time and it's their life and priority.
I try to keep it to a minimum. I post. I reply. I read, comment and upvote and then I'm off. And you're it. I'm off now :) lol
Have a good evening Lydon!
I agree! If someone comments and doesnt upvote, I just ignore it as spam. If someone comments and upvotes, I try to comment back and even do a small upvote.
Hurray, team @old-guy-photos!!
Lol, bravo!
As John said, I think you covered it all. :)
I almost never like stuff on facebook and I usually only comment for humor - I use facebook only because of the chat feature to stay connected to those of my friends that don't use Telegram.
On Steem, on the other hand, I feel really productive when I comment and upvote other peoples work. I like the atmosphere much more around here and I feel that people actually care about comments and votes - not just for financial reasons.
I joined Steem for the investment aspect, at first, but there is so much more to it - at least on my opinion.
That's great. Being productive feels good. Nice to meet you :)
I would say both, and that is the beauty of it. I can interact socially and also feel confident that it is time spent building relationships...Its a win-win in my book, but as many things, it's a matter of perspective.
And that is something I have always respected about you. I often find you talking with the same people I interact with, and I know you comment on many more blogs as well.
A really good post, lydon. I could respond, but Deb said it all - between the two of you, you've got the topic covered, lol
Lol, thank you John. Deb did a great job for sure. :)
Good to think about. Moderation in everything.
I don't think you had yet arrived here when I wrote my (partially) humorous series of "Steemit Anonymous" meetings... ;) You might enjoy them, in this context... :D
☁️Steemit Anonymous:☁️ We Peek In On Meeting Number Two...
Overheard at This Week's ☁️Steemit Anonymous☁️ Meeting #3
Perhaps I should re-issue them for newer Steemians? ;)
😄😇😄
Lol! You’re right, we had not connected at this point in your Steemit career yet. Perhaps another visit to the support group is in order? ;)
Thanks for the impetus... It may be time for yet another meeting... ;)
Good reminder about the 7 habits. I first read the book back when i was in school many years ago and am pretty out of touch. For most of us, steemit won't replace the day job but any side money is always welcome :)
Quite true. A little extra goes a long way. :)
investment approach of it would be nice as with time it is going to pay off :)
I agree. :)
Steem is such a pool of resource that I love to just spend time engaging with and learning. Trying to increase my ability to relate to users on the platform and engage in meaningful relationships. Love spending a morning browsing, learning, upvoting and commenting.
Thanks for the post and enjoyed reading your take on the whole use of Steem!
Ahh, a kindred spirit here. Learning with others is a blessed exercise. Good to hear from you Jonny!
i think for steemit particularly we can think of it as investing and you already know why whereas for other things we can say we are spending and wasting time along ....
I think you are right.
Well like you said the facts are true and I sure like to read and comment and upvote ,which does makes me feel quite great by the way and get to learn many new things along the way ,as this learning will be there for me always .
It sure feels great to go through your posts buddy !
Steemit is certainly a gold mine for learning. :)
It sure is buddy !
You know sometimes i do feel guilty of not giving that particular time to family which i usually spend surfing steemit; although its been just few days i joined. But having said that, everyone needs some healthy activity in which he can feed his brain. All the monotonous activities throughout the day makes the person feel robotic and depressed at the same time. There has to be some thought provoking activity; which steemit is excellent at.
But of course TOO MUCH of anything can cause serious problems :)
Haha, yes, too much of anything can be a bad thing.
Steemit is definitely a place where we can grow and learn from the knowledge of others - I certainly have.
I’lol have to look into the esteem app, often there are lengthy articles I want to come back to
Ahhh the queation where mostly our surroundings are harrassing us with!
I see Steemit as an investment. I learn a lot about crypto, blockchains, a lot of technology I have never heard about and same like you... I like manual curating. Yes I have an autovoter on for when I am too busy (being a nurse doesnt gove you the free time you would wish for) bit in general I vote stuff I like!
Apart from that of course I get carried away in reading and scrolling too much and chatting about crap on Discord.
Yeah its a bit of both so actually!
people can argue on this whole day long but individuals views matter on this as what they like to see and how they like to see it as nice post bro
i love to spend time to make it the best for future just like you hahah
your title really took me in a deep sense of question and i ended up asking the same ques to myself.. @lydon.sipe