Of all the things I’ve always been considered pretty good at — writing, drawing, etc. — one of the things I’ve never appreciated enough is my ability to adapt.
Mood music:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Bh7eE3zW2c&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]
When OCD is out of control, adapting to change is pure hell. You want everything just so, in just the right amount and the right amount of order. Change anything and the person who loses control goes into a tailspin.
But in recovery, adapting to change is a gift I’ve only recently come to appreciate. When you finally realize you don’t have control and you surrender, it becomes easier to pull off.
I used to be terrified of job changes. I remember the day before starting at The Eagle-Tribune and the day before starting at TechTarget. I was strung out on anxiety and walked around full of depression and dread. By the time I got to changing jobs again in 2008, I had already evolved in my recovery enough that the dread didn’t come. The day before I started at CSO Magazine, I was giddy as a kid on Christmas Eve. I was learning to adapt.
Now I’m learning to adapt some more. I’m learning that my current process of distributing this blog needs to be tweaked. And I’m ready to adapt.
This form of adaptation should be easy because it requires me to do less, not more.
When my old colleague sent me a note calling me an “obsessive poster” it gave me real pause. As I mentioned yesterday, I can be obsessive in that task. There’s some publishing science behind what I do and I explained it, but I admit I am obsessive-compulsive about being part of a discussion and worrying about my words being missed along the way. It’s purely selfish, and I’m not proud of it. But I can adapt.
And so starting today, I disabled the automated tool that has made it far too easy for me to tweet and Facebook posts multiple times a day.
I’m pulling it back to three times a day: Once in the morning, once in the afternoon and once in the evening, so the blog will still be exposed to those online traffic cycles. But no more posting things every two hours, for example. That’s just me being ridiculous.
Also — eventually — I’m going to build a separate Facebook page for this blog. That way, the folks who really want it have a place to go and connections that don’t want it won’t have to suffer the barrage.
I’m not sure if the Twitter approach needs changes, but I’m open to suggestions. My security writing already goes out on a separate Twitter feed, though I still push the security content from my personal Twitter page. Do I want to make a separate feed for the diaries? I don’t know yet. But I realize it might be necessary.
LinkedIn is a much more complicated beast, because that is a purely professional social networking platform. I’m not sure how a separate OCD Diaries presence on LinkedIn, separate from my security presence, would work. Complicating matters is that A LOT of my audience on the security side reads this blog as well. I don’t want to make it harder to find.
So you see, I need to adapt this stuff to be more in tune to people’s sensitivities. I can’t change the flavor of the blog. It’s mine and I don’t write it to please people, though it is pleasing when someone gets something from it.
I can change how I deliver my posts, however. 
Ideas are welcome. The change in posting frequency starts now.
The other things will be worked out in March.
I also want to include more local music on here, but sound quality is important. So to all my musician friends, let’s talk.
Seize the day (or evening, in this case).