It’s “Not My Business” season again.

A year ago Olivia Rafferty declared that some things were not her business:

Things That, As A Substacker, Are Not My Business

1. How many subscribers I have? NOT MY BUSINESS
2. The current state of my header/footer? NOT MY BUSINESS
3. Whatever is happening on my welcome page? NOT MY BUSINESS
4. The growing pile of unread newsletters in my inbox? NOT MY BUSINESS
5. How many emojis I use? NOT MY BUSINESS
6. The leaderboard for Culture? NOT MY BUSINESS
7. Substack Chat? NOT MY BUSINESS
8. My Notion database for future post ideas? NOT MY BUSINESS
9. My open rate? NOT MY BUSINESS

Social media, and lately the newsletter busy-ness industrial complex, has us spinning our wheels on so many things that are not our business.

Things like open rates, deliverability, A/B testing headlines, churn, soft bounces and hard bounces, email lists spread across multiple CSV files – really, it never fucking ends, and most of us ain’t making enough to sweat all the finer details.

A year ago I dared to offer things that might definitely be our business, saying “imagine spending more time on things that rejuvenate your soul instead of cosplaying as an overworked social media manager.” I guess now I could change that to “email marketing director.”

• Instead of learning how to navigate all the new features that Meta has set up on Instagram, imagine becoming a better musician, photographer, or artist.
• Spend most of our non-day job hours honing our craft rather than becoming part-time “content creators” while expecting full-time results.
• There’s a screen time app, but where’s the guitar time app, or painting time app? Imagine if we tracked our creative practice and saw that we spent three hours a day writing. We’d celebrate that, wouldn’t we?

So what I figured out is this: hosting Zoom calls with my subscribers is my business.

I love it. I’ve been doing it since late 2023 and I absolutely love it so much that I host three live calls a week and a co-work session.

As I’m turning 50 soon I’m finding that doing things I love is my now my business, and I probably wouldn’t have discovered this if I kept my Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts, because I would have kept bouncing around each platform morning, noon, and night.

That, my friends, is not my business.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying ignore spell check (maybe), or ignore your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC settings at the domain level (wait, what?), but imagine living a life where we just do things we love?

The audacity!

If you’re an artist, imagine the act of MAKING ART was your business? If you play guitar, imagine devoting three hours a day to study and practice? I would say that’s your business, yes?

Because I’m not so sure all this busy work we’re doing will really enhance our work.

I mean, yes, log into your bookkeeping service on occasion. Of course!

But do we need to file every social media post we make into a spreadsheet to track its effectiveness?

Do we need to juggle multiple CSV files between accounts?
Do we need to obsess over unsubscribes and click through rates?
Do we need to research 13 different software solutions?
Did I need to set up and test two “community” sites this weekend (no, I did not)?

This is why later this month I’m hosting a workshop to discuss these matters.

If you’ve seen my work, you know I won’t be reading from a Google Slides deck, but rather leading a conversation about the work that matters and the work we should leave off our weekly todo list. I hope you’ll come.

It happens on Wednesday, Aug 27th at 12:30pm EST, and it’s called “THE “SHOULD I IMPORT MY EMAIL LIST TO SUBSTACK, THE NIGHTMARE OF CROSS-PLATFORM UNSUBSCRIBES, AND OTHER LAPTOP-HURLING BUSY WORK” WORKSHOP.

Get a ticket for $50 (Social Media Escape Club members get it free as part of their membership).
Find out all the details (including how to get access for just $10) here.