Someone sent me a message recently asking me why I was on facebook so much and said that I should get off and do other things.
Then someone in person said man, I’ve seen you a lot on facebook lately.
So I figured since two people have said it there’s others that are thinking it too.
I’m at a coffee shop right now. Thursday mornings Pastor RK and I meet at Blue Tree Cafe and drink coffee and work. This is something that Dave Heiliger and I did at Panera in Columbia that I think is a great idea. “Office hours.” Getting together with someone and making a coffee shop your office and getting some work done.
Anyway, I’m online and I’ve spent the past hour and a half editing blog posts, scheduling blog posts and writing blog posts. Facebook is a tab on my browser that’s open.
Feeling a bit insecure since two people had mentioned my facebook usage, I asked my friend in person at a camp fire that we were having if I was on facebook to much. He said no, he didn’t mean it like that, and pointed out that at least I use facebook relationally and actually respond and have conversations with people. I’m glad he noticed that. Thats part of the reason I am on facebook so much is to be intentional with relationships. Facebook is where people are.
Remember Monday’s post? This is part of the resistance I feel. Facebook and blogging seems like a leisurely waste of time or at best a hobby to most. But to me I see it as an actual aspect of my work. I hope I’m adding value to peoples lives through it. It sounds strange saying that, and I want to shy away from it, because I’m afraid someone is going to tell me that it’s stupid and I should get a “real job.” Maybe that is what you are thinking as you read this. That’s another aspect of resistance for me. Not believing that where I choose to invest my time on is of any “real” benefit to others.
You might see me on facebook more often than the average joe because I schedule my blog posts to share at certain times throughout the week.
Also, facebook’s newsfeed isn’t chronological either. If a post from 5 years ago suddenly gets commented on a lot and liked a lot, it’s deemed “popular” and resurfaces in peoples news feeds.
Since we live in Hawaii and a lot of our readers are on the East coast and we have other friends around the world I schedule my blog post links to schedule at various times.
I use hoot suite and bufferapp for scheduling. I post blog posts on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and share them at 630am Eastern Time and 900pm Eastern time. 630am eastern time is 1230pm the day before in Hawaii, I’m sleeping as that posts. I also schedule each of those posts to post the next day at 3pm eastern time.
Tuesdays and Thursdays I schedule a blog post that I’ve found useful to post at 3pm eastern time. This is all done in advance.
So that’s 10 posts a week that I’m intentionally posting scheduled. The other times I’m interacting with people on facebook. Trying out some tweets that I’ve written and thought of that usually end up as a full blog post. And trying to be intentional about encouraging, connecting and conversation.
Facebook is a great place for me to flesh out ideas in my head see how those ideas will be responded to.
So that’s why I’m on facebook a lot. 
The other day I spent 3 hours just writing and intentionally turned off facebook and e-mail and it was super productive. However today… facebook is back on and I’m having a hard time getting in any kind of productive groove so we’ll see what happens. When we move to TN we won’t have internet at our new house so it will naturally lead to less time online.
