Spread Thin

I set up a Ning site for the 100AP a while back but never used it. Last night I thought it'd be a good idea to use it more. So I sent invites to all the contributors, organized the page a bit and was very close to making more graphics for it.

Then I realized how much time I spend doing this online....junk and not drawing. One of Len Peralta's most recent podcasts talked about nearing show 200 and wondering if it'd be worth it to move on. He's not making any money off it and it's been a few years now and he was having sort of a crisis of concept. I didn't want to play devil's advocate, but I did. I told him that if it's taking time away from his drawing, he should reconsider the podcast as a major project.

Then I started thinking about everything I do online and it was almost silly. On a daily basis here's what I do (not including my job.)

• Check three email accounts - I have my main gmail, a gmail account I use for 100AP correspondance and a gmail my in-laws keep wanting to send stuff to even though I wanted to use that only as spam.
• Update Blogger blogs - If I've drawn any robots, I'll post that to the Robot Portrait site. If I see anything worth talking about, I'll update this blog. If something happens on the 100AP side, I'll update that site.
• X-Posting 100AP - If I update the 100AP site, I'll post that same post to the MySpace site, the ComicSpace site, Penciljack and UggaBugga.net. It's not 100% as most times I just write about ideas and such. But interviews and important info will get cross posted.
• Ning - Now that I've set up the 100AP Ning site, I'll check that for updates probably every hour.
• RSS Feeds - I've got about 50 subscriptions I read in my Google Reader. On one account it's just to read and enjoy, but on another Google account it's to post industry news to a sharing widget that's picked up by the 100AP blog and the Ning site. Lot of logging out and back in.
• Penciljack and UggaBugga - I help administer Penciljack.com so I'll check it a few times a day and moderate threads, offer critiques or do as much administrative stuff as my power level will allow. There aren't any major projects at PJ that I'm running, but it's always a time killer. UB.net and ASJ41 I'm just a member, but I'm lettering episodes and helping with promotion and organization. Stephen actually called me his consultant.
• Lettering - I'm contracted to letter two books right now, and I've volunteered to do one other one. None of which I'm really caught up on and I don't have a lot of time at home or work to do it. And I shouldn't do it at work.
• Flickr and DeviantARt- As much time as I've spent doing Flickr projects, that finally died off. I was doing a 365days thing for a while, but I got tired of looking at myself on my photostream AND realized I was just waiting till nearly midnight and taking dumb pictures instead of doing something else. Now I just watch my contacts pictures and offer an occasional comment. DeviantArt is even worse. I made a flood of updates for a while, tried tying it all to the 100AP but DA's user interface really turns me off and I've kind of abandoned it.
• Message Boards - I'm technically a member of around a dozen art related forums. Most of them I only use to update the 100AP, but I've tried to become active on them to make it look like I'm NOT trying to be there just to pimp the project. Those include conceptart.org, eatpoo, gutterzombie, illustrationfriday, dimestore productions, blambot, balloontales, digital webbing presents, comicartfans, and probably more. I'm also probably missing some big communities.
• Art - This is the area I need to do more personally. I know I owe a friend a faerie drawing. I have all these small robot or alphabet projects that I've left in my ADD wake. Plus I just signed up to do 6 pages of sequentials for ASJ, I must be out of my mind.

I'm fairly sure I'm missing something. I'm racking my brain trying to figure out ways to make it easier on myself, but all I end up doing is making it worse. I'm simultaneously making more work for myself and not getting anything of value done. I wish what I listed above was my day job and I got paid to do all that. I'm pretty good at it, but "online creative collaboration manager and contributor" is no job I've ever heard of.

Now I'm off to spend time with the kids and not get any work done, but the work will be there and the kids won't after a time.

Carry on.