Avoiding Social Burnout as a Musician

Almost all of my creative friends struggle with how to effectively manage their social media accounts without it becoming an all consuming affair. As artists, we love to create and putting together content ideas can be fun, but for many of us it can become overwhelming and lead to feelings of burnout.

After many years of talking about it, I finally decided to detox from all social media and stayed offline for 8 weeks. During that time I learned an enormous amount about myself and was able to make conscious choices about how I would like to manage my online presence going forward. There is now balance in my life that was severely lacking and I’m much happier and more creative.

This is a guest post by top rated AirGigs artist Katie Marie

Here are some tips for creating that balance which I hope you will find useful.

PRESS PAUSE
If you’ve always wanted to take a break from the socials but have been frightened to do so, I promise (like, pinky promise), you have absolutely nothing to worry about.

I didn’t post anything whatsoever to my social media accounts for 2 months.

You know what happened?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Sure, I lost a couple of followers. But I’m certain you will have observed, this happens regardless of how amazing you deem your posts to be.

Everything stayed the same, except I was able to take care of myself and redirect my focus into other endeavors.

Take whatever time you need. You don’t owe anyone an explanation. I promise you it will all be there upon your return, for better or worse.

SCHEDULE POSTS
Right before I took my 2 month break, I was successfully utilizing a single afternoon every week to create and schedule a weeks worth of content. I still use that same approach, but now spend a single day mapping out the entire month. I cannot tell you how much this cleared my mind of the chaotic process of deciding what to post about, and having to go through that process every day / week, which I found to be a major disruption to my creative flow.

Scheduling allows me to have a clear objective in mind and once everything is set up and ready to go, all I needed to do is log into my account once a day to answer any comments. You can very easily schedule posts through Instagram and Facebook or using 3rd party apps such as HootSuite or Crowdfire.

BREAK THE CYCLE
I never used to be someone who was constantly attached to their phone, looking at aimless stuff just for the sake of it. But a few months ago I realized I had indeed morphed into that very person. Slowly but surely, my phone and all my social media accounts were in complete control of my life, to the point that when I stopped at a stop light, I was picking up my phone and checking out Instagram posts. I don’t get easily addicted to things, but without knowing it, I was hooked. Any spare moment of the day I would whip out my phone and stare at nothing of great importance. I also realized that when I was overwhelmed or stressed, instead of addressing these emotions, I would pick up my phone and bury myself in a social media feed.

I clearly remember thinking, this HAS to change. This is NOT who I am and it is not how I wish the spend the rest of my life on this beautiful Earth. I don’t want to be someone who is being constantly manipulated and controlled by an algorithm, an algorithm that I have devoted my life to battling in the vein hope that it will allow me to reach the right people.

The first thing I had to do was Break the Cycle. I set up 3 specific times during the day (8am, 12pm and 6pm) and would only allow myself to look at social media at these three times. I made a note of when I had checked in, and was very mindful about picking up my phone in between these times. I had to remind myself, it’s ok to just simple be. I am allow to sit / stand still. Being still gives me time to process, daydream and come up with new ideas. The problem is, we have conditioned ourselves to believe that we have to fill every moment of every day with something, anything to distract us from being in the present moment.

POCKET POWER
The biggest game changer for me was buying myself a pocket notebook. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, but you do have to carry it around with you and treasure it in the same way as you would your phone. Whenever you want to grab your phone, pull out your notebook and just write. Anything. It doesn’t even have to make any sense. I found this almost impossible to do at first, but now I can’t imagine life without a notebook and I’m actually more connected to it than my phone. Everything is in there. Song ideas, thoughts, processing emotions, shopping lists, quotes. And you know the best thing? I’m never distracted and my notebook is there for one reason and one reason alone; to help me. My phone? Not so much. Companies love to make out that tech makes our lives infinitely better, but I’m now understanding that my life wasn’t actually broken to begin with and I’m spending my days trying to return to the simplicity I once had.

CREATE A SACRED SPACE
We live in an era where it seems we feel the need to share absolutely everything with the whole world, all of the time. Something I greatly appreciated when doing my socials detox was being able to create music and not immediately thinking ‘ooo! This would make a fantastic social media post!‘ and thus totally ruining the moment.

Be sure to create a safe and sacred space for yourself, where you can play, experiment and explore music however you want to, without feeling the need to share it with everyone. When I think back to my youth, I spent hours on end every day practicing and honing my skills, not to mention recording and writing. Somewhere in my parent’s loft is a huge suitcase crammed full of cassette tapes that are all sketches, ideas and songs I was working on. Back then I didn’t share my efforts with anyone. I was driven to do it simply because I loved music and wanted to improve. I had so much reverence for my creative space, and bringing that back into my life has made me a significantly happier person.

TAKE CONTROL
I can highly recommend taking some time off from social media. You will find out more about yourself than you might think. When you return, have a plan in place to help you not go back to how you were feeling. Take control. Schedule posts and be mindful about how often you pick up your phone. If you do plan on taking time off I’d love to hear about your experience, and if you have any other words of advice feel free to post them in the comments below.

Stay tuned for more articles on creating valuable content without the risk of burnout.