How Do You Do It?

Honestly, I would love to know how others do it... do "what" you ask?

"It"

"Everything"

How does anyone keep up with all the technology these days and still keep a house clean, go to work, raise a family, and still feed oneself while still finding time to do something fun once in a while?!

I was just surfing around and was looking at random about.me pages and I see where many people have many different places to find them, such as:

Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Linkedin, Instagram, email, personal blog, Flavors.me, About.me, Pinterest, Fitocracy, Dribble, Github, a personal website, YouTube, DeviantArt, Google+, flickr, Ravelry, etc.  (There are tons more, but honestly, I don't know how anyone could possibly keep up) Not to mention all the apps that are out there that constantly distract all of us.


So how do you do it?  How do you balance it all and still have a life without falling behind on the technology and the information highway?  


At times like these, I think about my life twenty years ago, before I even owned a cell phone.  Smartphones weren't even invented yet.  I didn't own a computer and there social media meant actually physically going to a coffee house or club of some sort and actually being social.


Although I really love computers and surfing around, I really miss the simpler days.  I enjoy my smartphone and love being able to keep schedules on it, but I remember the peace and quiet I had without it.  

And let me ask another question, does anyone play board games or card games anymore?  I mean the ones that aren't digital.  I see that they're still sold in stores, but does anyone actually play them with real people, face to face?  I try to get our family to play a board game once in a while on a Family Home Evening, but it's hard with Little Man and his desire for attention, along with the rest of the family who just want to stare at the boob tube and watch a movie.  I'm all for movies, but once in a while, I'd like to exercise my brain and have some actual social interaction with a real person across the table rather than on the other side of the world through a 15 inch screen.  


Not that I mind meeting new and interesting people from around the globe, but when I'm out and about and see nothing but people with their noses stuck in their phones/iPads/etc, not even watching where they're going, I have to wonder just how good all this technology really is.  And then I'm back to my question of BALANCE.  It all comes down to that once simple word that is nearly impossible to achieve successfully on any kind of regular basis.

Photo Credit

I have seen a few sites (such as HootSuite & SproutSocial) that offer a one-stop-shopping experience, per say, in the way of managing all of your social media sites.  A place where you can go and post once and be done with it and it magically posts to numerous other sites per your instructions, etc.  But from what I've seen, you need to actually pay for that service.  (At least I haven't found one that does the work for free)  


Then there's something I just happened to come across.  You may have already heard of it, you may even be already using it... WiseStamp which automatically adds different aspects of all of your social media into your signature in your email.  Your latest Tweet, your latest eBay listing, links to your Facebook and much more.  I don't know what the free account gets you, as I couldn't find that info without downloading it and I don't think I'm ready for that just yet.  You can buy premium services too, but that's not in my budget at the moment.


So, the question comes down to exactly how important is my time versus the management of all my crap?  Well, I don't really know... I've got a lot o'crap to deal with and social media is not the highest in the order of importance.  I've got a house that needs cleaned, a family that needs food, groceries to get, laundry to do, blah blah blah.... Show me a site that can manage all of that for me and we'll talk price... I won't be able to afford it, but we can still talk about it.  


In the meantime, as I look back over my post, I realize that I started this post a couple days ago and I'm just now finishing it up.  I have not posted something every single day this month like I did for June and was hoping to accomplish for this month of July as well.  I have started a new project in crocheting (pics and links coming soon.)  And I've found more social media sites that look very interesting and tempting, if I wasn't already bogged down with too many already.  

Time to do some weeding in my internet garden, I think.