New habits and recommendation fatigue.

Month In The Life: July 2024

Reminder: You can listen to this if you prefer! I professionally record and edit the podcast version of each Month In The Life post. So treat yourself to a solo walk on a sunny morning or a drive and an iced coffee and let’s hang out, shall we? And if you want to read, well… there’s always that option, too :)

[Note: I wrote and recorded this before an article went viral about (among other things) the prevalence of listicle/round-up/recommendation content on Substack right now. As I talk about in this post, I have also felt overwhelmed by the sheer amount of listicle-style recommendation content on Substack lately. I also believe that that type of content is entertaining, provides a service, and is very often created by talented writers. I think the same thing about content from people who share regularly about their life and feelings (that would be me, I guess, though I suppose I fall into both buckets!). Ultimately, I think the beauty of this platform is that it encourages and supports experimentation, creativity, and, yes, writing. I think there is room for everyone here. Most of all, I am incredibly thankful for the people who make the decision to support my work here (financially or otherwise). You are what gives me the space to keep creating. So, thank you. I hope you enjoy this post and I hope that if you’re here on Substack, you keep creating whatever it is you feel called to create, regardless of self-doubt. I know exactly how loud the refrains of “you’re not good enough” can become sometimes. Keep going.]

It’s been a bit since I’ve posted one of my Month In The Life round-ups. I took June off to focus on launching Such A Bad Influence, and in July I wrote a full publication month recap in place of a MITL. The last couple months have been quieter for me in a lot of ways, mostly thanks to the fact that I have drastically changed how I interact with Instagram. On the heels of pub week, I was averaging 7 and 8 hours of screen time per day. Seven or eight hours. Per. Day. And yes, it’s true that I was traveling more than usual, and riding the high of publishing a book and seeing people read and share it. That’s fair. But still, 7-8 hours of staring at my phone per day was just not a statistic that sat well with me. Nor, I think, did it help with the eventual emotional crash I mentioned in my pub month recap. If anything, it probably contributed to it. When you’re used to that constant flow of dopamine every minute of every waking hour of your day, well, you can imagine what happens when it starts to fade. In many ways, this summer has been riding the highs and lows of exactly that experience. How much validation, exactly, did I need to be happy?