Time is a precious commodity that is for sure. But have we let time become less of a sacred thing to be doled out sparingly and more of an excuse to avoid.

I started my blog on January 1, 2009 with an off-beat rambling set of insights gained after my doctor put me on bedrest for a week following my little jaunt to the ER for extreme fatigue and exhaustion. I didn't touch it for nearly a month until at a work conference I met Ryan Healy, and he told me to sign up for this new site, Brazen Careerist, specifically for the sharing of ideas and blogs. "Hey, I have one of those," I thought. I signed up later that week. And I wrote some really pretty bad posts. (At least I recognize it, come on now!)

So I started surfing to other people's blogs to get an idea of what good blogging looked like. To find some interesting designs and tools, build relationships to learn from bloggers I respected, and grow as an online writer. I joined Twitter in March or April of 2009 under much duress but suggestion of some of these folks. By June of 2009 I had colleagues and business acquaintances asking me “the secret” to how I was everywhere they went online.

I would tell them, the secret isn't a secret at all. It's the reality that social media experts and personal branding guru's don't want you to know. The secret is just to be yourself and reach out to others. Take the time to build relationships with people you respect and admire. Learn from them (both the good and the bad things...you can't love people in pieces) and apply the lessons to your own stuff. Bells and whistles and get famous/rich/smarter fast schemes aren't going to get you anywhere. Devoting time to doing it organically and genuinely are what will win out, everytime.

As soon as I told people this, the response of approximately 95% was the same. "Yeah, I want to build my business/career/pet ant farm using online stuff, but I just don't have time for it." It irked the living bejeebers out of me. Whether intended or not, there are many reprocussions to this excuse. On top of the fact that you are unintentionally insulting me (would you like to check out the weekly schedule that I created to make sure I get to everything important to me?!) you are actually saying "Yeah, I want to do those things but I'm not sure I believe in/want to put the effort into/care enough about them to execute."

This reality slapped me across the face while I was in the Brazen Careerist webinar this past week, learning how to better facilitate and use the network I "lead" (shout out XY Cusp...woohoo!) As Penelope Trunk and Ryan Paugh talked about ways to engage and use the Brazen Careerist community for developing yourself, building relationships and helping to create a reputation for yourself I found myself zoning in and out. Penelope kept talking about how she uses her group to bounce ideas, share with friendly acquaintances and work things out in her head. Went on and on about how great it was. And I found my fingers typing in a shallow and extremely whiny moment "But Penelope, how do the rest of us who do all this other stuff find time to participate in all the different groups." Waaaaaah! If that didn't warrant a face slap, I don't know what does. Like the crew over at Brazen just has time leaking out of their Franklin Covey planners/iPhone schedulers to play around.

The truth of what I was saying was "How do I participate in all these groups that people invite me to on Brazen that I then join but never do anything about?" I mean, I really like the idea of upcycling and read more voraciously than a sex addict in The Bunny Ranch does...stuff...but I don't want to allocate my beautiful time to chatting groups about these things.

Professional Writing/Blogging Ideas, XY Cusp, Appreciation Revolutions and Community Management/NonProfits - THESE are things that I want to spend time on. These are discussions I could have until I'm blue in the face/fingers and relationships I long for in developing myself in these arenas. They are the folks I want to learn from. They are the groups I will make time for.

Don't use something as carefully spent as time as a cheap excuse for why you can't do something. Instead, be brave and real and explain why you don't want to allocate time to that particular endeavor. Cause if you don't, you'll eventually convince even yourself that you can't.