Stats are driving me insane. I confess, I have been obsessing over my readership/facebook likes/klout stats like they are experience points in (insert nerdy role playing game here). It is almost as bad as that one time I got into Facebook games, except there I have learned my lesson (read, I will not reply to your FarmVille request). In an effort to develop longterm vision (where am I going in 5 years, not 5 minutes) I need to stop.
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The key problem? Stats defeat great art. By focusing on trying to get more page views or unique visitors or even real person approval, I deny my artistic calling. I want to connect with you. I want to have a conversation, and face it, how annoying would it be to converse with someone asking you every twenty seconds, “Is this a good conversation? Do you like it? Are you sharing my insights with your friends?” To answer my own question, really annoying. My online presence is for getting out my content, not for tickling the fancy of the masses, masses are fickle. Those benefitting from my content will automatically help me find and define my tribe.
Building anything of consequence takes time. Just ask Jesus, he spent 30 years of his life in relative obscurity before changing the world in three short years. Even from a purely logical point of view, it doesn’t make sense to check stats more than once a day. Most stats don’t fully update until at least one day has passed. In some cases, stats are averaged over a weekly basis (like for most Facebook page stats). Even if your stats are real-time with a uppercase R and T, there is too much noise to judge any trends. By looking at weeks and months rather than hours and days, I feel like I get a better picture of where I am coming from, and indeed, if I am making any headway towards consistently promoting my content.
Patience, it takes patience.
I am going to not allow myself to look at stats but once a week, in an effort to move to engage my mind with more longterm vision (and avoid insanity). I’m going to focus more on my art, and less on the response to that art. In the end, I wasn’t making the art for the response anyway.
What could you ignore or cut out that would help you focus more?
William Stonewall Monroe
PS: As you may have noticed, this post is on a monday, not the usual friday. I am playing around a bit with the time that I write, in an effort to get the best content and make sure you, my lovely readers can see it. As such I’ll most likely break out blog posts to twice a week now, one more focused on thoughtful thoughts, and the other containing the weekly song.
William Stonewall Monroe 