It's appropriate to write a back to school post nearly a month into the school year.
I took Twitter off my phone back in July in an effort to put my phone down more often. It had become too easy to lazily open and scroll when my interest waned. That bled into time with my kids, and that wasn't cool. I suppose I could have just "worked on my self control," but I'm more of a "pluck your eye out if it causes you to sin" kind of person. Cold turkey it was.
July bled into August which has raced into September. My phone is still Twitterless and I'm feeling more connected to my teachers and schools _here_. The social-edu world had eroded my sense of here-ness...I felt beckoned by people I've never met face to face. My desire to help and engage with the digital friends overrode the drive to get to know people here, now.
By extension, because I was online less, the blog has also cobwebbed up a little bit. I can't write volumes like [Alan](https://twitter.com/cogdog) but I don't want to lose steam here entirely. Finding a balance has been hard. I need to write for me.
The evolving role of coach has pushed me to talk less and listen more. I think that's why I haven't really missed being online. Wanting to write, up until this point, feels like more of a drive to not waste the space than to share insight. Or maybe it's more that sharing insight shouldn't be the driving factor of having space on the Internet. Hubris kills just as quickly as stagnation.
Now that we're back, I'm planning on listening a lot. I'll probably do some processing here, in prose, just because it'll help me work through my own habits and thinking patterns. But I plan on listening more than talking.
Twitter still won't be on my phone.