My favourite part of this whole online 'thing' has always been engagement. Live videos, DM's responding to comments etc was what made the time it took to create the content WORTH IT.

I prided myself on responding to EVERY youtube comment for 10 years and it wasn't until a conversation with @fionalikestoblog on a @callingallfriends.pod episode that it dawned on me that this had possibly been the wrong move.

I love to do something until I HAVE to do it and once it clicked that by making myself available 24/7 I had created an EXPECTATION that I would be available 24/7 I realised the error of my ways. There was a faction of people who felt entitled to a response and irritated if I took too long to give it and that was my fault

I decided to relax my standards a little and respond less frequently but the habit of a decade meant I always had an uneasy feeling that there was a job left undone. ALL. THE. TIME. It's hard to break old habits and of course I missed the back and forth and so TODAY I have been at my laptop since 9am attacking the backlog.

If you've received a response to a comment you left me 8 weeks ago, now you know why 😂

It makes totally sense to step back and disengage a little if you're feeling burned out because that element of content creation is possibly more time consuming than creating the content itself, but for those of us who do it FOR the comments, we just can't give that up.

I will always have a hard time with instagram replies (it's not a good system) but if you DM me or leave a comment on a video, I am reinstating that expectation that you will see a response (or at lease acknowledgement) from me. Without comments I would have sacked this off years ago and in the interest of stripping it all back to OG YouTube and remembering why I started, I'm declaring this a failed experiment and apologising in advance to @lee.mcdd for being on my phone more than usual again (so - ALWAYS) x

*this post first appeared on instagram