I've fallen out of love with Substack

So I'm going to take a break. It might be indefinite.

Lately I’ve been asking myself how best to spend my time.

A friend told me that she recently told me she quit taking her girls to swimming because she just hated it. It was hours and hours of prep for literally 30 minutes in the pool. She decided to give herself permission to stop. She’d done it for a year and it was just not worth it.

This got me thinking that perhaps we should all take stock more often and ask ourselves what we’re doing with our limited time.

I started this Substack almost exactly 3 years ago in 2021 when I quit the start-up.

Since then I have been posting pretty regularly, on Fridays.

I then decided that starting in 2024 I’d move to writing this Substack only twice a month.

It’s now March and I feel like something is telling me that I can stop posting all together.

I can’t say why the change.

Maybe because I hate all the new bells and whistles that Substack has added, always trying to get me to up my readership. Every time I log on there’s some new feature being advertised and the dashboard is now super busy. I used to love Substack because it felt just like a clean Word doc when I opened it. There wasn’t so much clutter. I could think quietly and post my thoughts. This just doesn’t feel like the case anymore.

Maybe it’s because I am literally doing WAY TOO MUCH. My work is intense. Being a mom is intense. Trying to write a book is intense. Being a wife and daughter and the CEO of our household is intense. All of it is intense and often it gets to be way too much.

Maybe it’s because it’s 2024 - and I am trying to lay low. I’m trying to get through this year of 9; a year of churn and transition.

Maybe it’s because I am actually writing. Is it super productive? Not in terms of words. But it IS super productive in terms of heart and soul. I’ve already written 3 Book People vignettes in 2024. My meetings with my writing mentor is working and even if the pace of this book is geological, the point is that there is still forward motion. I am proud of that.

Maybe it’s just that I want to spring clean my life. Out with the old that’s no longer serving my purpose.

And so, I’ve decided I’m going to let myself quit writing my Substack for now - at least quit such a rigid pace. I may come back once in awhile if something strikes me, but in the meantime I’d like to add more juice to all the other projects in my life.

Happy Spring and Nowruz and Easter and Tomb Sweeping. Thank you for reading and following my journey thus far.

I wish you all a wonderful new Spring!