Five Things Friday Vol. 32

Five Things Friday: just five things I’m thinking about or things that made my week, or things that I otherwise feel like sharing.

Aaaand… it’s October. How? Why? And where did 3/4 of this year go? (Don’t answer that. I know you’re all having the same questions.)

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Last week I started the 8-week Power Zone Fall Challenge with PZPack and the Peloton Streakers. It’s a cycling challenge that we are taking on as part of a team, where we ride a minimum of 3 power zone rides per week, plus an optional 30-minute “accelerator ride” that earns our team extra points. Tanja and I are always up for a good challenge – keeps you on your toes, you know? – so of course we had to join. Do you enjoy exercise challenges?

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This tweet from last week really resonated with me. I have warmed up a little bit to Instagram Stories, but Reels still stress me out and don’t get me started on YouTube videos. Most times, I prefer a photo with text over video content. This is why I still have a blog.

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How did you cope with the social media outage on Monday? TBH, I was so busy at work (two back-to-back telcons that took up most of my day) that I didn’t even notice. I only knew about it because one of my Whatsapp message was in “limbo” for a while and I was wondering why it wasn’t being delivered. Goes to show you, life goes on even without Facebook and Instagram. Who knew?

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I am looking forward to a long weekend. I had a “progress report” presentation this week for one of my projects and ended up working some long hours in the last couple of weeks to get the slides together. And while that part was fun, it was also a bit stressful because I am a bit of a perfectionist and want to deliver something good. But I am happy to report that the presentation went well, so now I am really looking forward to relax and recuperate this weekend and not think about the project for a little while. Do you have the day off on Monday, too? Any plans?

Enjoy your weekend!

  1. Ha, excercise challenges really stress me out. I’m already struggling at maintaining a fitness routine in my day to day life 😊

    The tweet made me laughing. I just returned to the blogger universe, because the constant videos on social media make me nervous. I love photos and text that allows me to process the information at my speed and not the presenters. That’s perhaps the reason why I prefer newspapers over TV.
    Unfortunately we don’t have a long weekend in Germany, so have a great time and sleep in for me on Monday, too 😉

    1. I am seriously so excited you returned to blogging. Blogs will be my first love forever. :)

  2. It’s Thanksgiving up here in Canada, so it is also a long weekend. I am so happy about it.

    Mondays are generally my busiest days, so I didn’t even know there was an outage until after the fact! I did wonder why I didn’t get a message from a friend – her sister had just had a baby and I was waiting for details – but it wasn’t until later I heard about the outage.

  3. Ahh I am so with you on the video thing. I Donn’t like looking at it and so I don’t care creating it. Unfortunately as a social media manager it is essential and I am stressing out a lot about it. I need to get used to it but not yet figuring out how. I do like an exercise challenge however more one I set myself nit something I feel sharing with someone else I guess. Good luck with yours.

  4. I didn’t know about the social media outage until I read about it on a news site! So I felt good about that. :)

    I like IG stories but not a fan of videos in general. I will sometimes share one but it usually doesn’t require volume. I didn’t even know what reels were until recently! I’m so hip clearly. ;) What annoys me most is training at work that is delivered in video form. I HATE that so much and would much rather just read the training. Since I work in financial services, there is a ton of required training related to being registered with the SEC. Lately they have moved more training to a readable format but a year or 2 ago most of it required you to watch a video. Drove me CRAZY!!

  5. I, too, have grown a bit weary about all the video content on Instagram these days. I just want to scroll and read – not watch a video. And I usually don’t have my sound on so unless there are captions, I can’t listen to the video and don’t want to turn my sound on to do so. Social media is definitely becoming video-heavy and I don’t really like it! Give me pictures and text, please.

    I didn’t even realize there was a social media outage until after the fact! I just rarely go on Instagram during the day and it didn’t really affect me.

  6. I FEEL THAT TWEET DEEPLY. I keep trying to make my husband understand this. I would rather read. Please don’t put a video in front of me. I feel the same way about reels. Sometimes words are better. Sometimes photos are better. Not everything needs to be a video. Not everything needs narration.

  7. Videos. 100% agree. I like stories – but I never put the sound up, to be honest! Just… write words, please. Please.
    Also… I knew of the social media issues (because I am an apparently insatiable consumer of news, and I needed a distraction from what was Another One of Those Weeks). But it didn’t affect me because the most time I spend on IG is about 10 min/day, and I don’t actually use FB anymore.

  8. I don’t have any social media accounts and am…so grateful for this! I feel like I’m still swamped with media (and don’t watch much TV either)! There is so much pressure to be all and do all, and that’s what I love about blogs – it’s words, maybe a few pictures. Let the story speak for itself without all the extra pretense that comes with the wild world of video. Also, most of the video’s I’ve seen second hand from these sources look like they must take forever to create?

    1. Elisabeth, you’re speaking from my heart. While I do have social media accounts (most friends live far away and I don’t have kids LOL), I agree with you mostly on the distractions it can cause…. this is while I’ll be sticking with my blog forever and ever! :) (Gotta go check out yours!)

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