Or: Why I Work In Marketing.
Or: How I Discovered My Blog(s) Are Nicheless.
Or: How I Embraced My Inner ADHD.
Or: How To Navigate Beth.
Or: The Blog Post That Deserved A Multitude Of Subtitles.
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[dropcaps]I[/dropcaps]’ve spent most of my adult life (well, let’s face it: my entire life) chasing shiny objects.
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As an elementary school student at a Catholic school in the West Indies and then as a bewildered transplant adjusting to middle school in the Pacific Northwest (litlmagpi.co/tworiversrunthroughit), I was forced by my astute mother to remove distractions from the area designated for homework.
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Frankly, she knew long before me that to get any work of substance done, I had to be immune – nay, isolated – from music, singing birds, passersby to interact with, inanimate objects to fiddle with and windows to cause daydreaming.
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My work in the field loosely filed under “marketing” through the years, my early obsession with social media, my zest for blogging and yes – even my passion for Evernote (litlmagpi.co/beanevernoteninja) all have one thing in common: they are thinly-veiled guises for my tendency to run enthusiastically toward allthethings.
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In fact, even writing is an enabler of my innate tendency to want to explore a million topics: it allows me to don the equivalent of scuba gear and plunge deep into a hidden world, tugging the line when it’s time for someone to pull me back to the surface and the real world. I’ve said many times that I’m more of an essayist due to my need to do a mini-dive into a litany of topics rather than (heaven forbid!) fixate on one thing for an extended period of time.
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As it happens, these passions are also coping mechanisms which allow me to process the many, many distractions I’m prone to explore with gusto.
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With each discovery of thebestthingever, I predictably text all my favorite people, tweet with enthusiasm, crash into conference rooms to tell everyone about thenewthing, file and tag for future reference and generally attempt to ensure that everybodyeverywhere joines me in my glee over each newfound object.
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When I first started blogging, I thought I had to have a niche. Fitting into a particular genre or bucket was not only impossible for me, it made me crazy. So one day, I owned the fact that knowing me is like drinking from a firehose. I stopped trying to make it all fit into a tidy package, and The Little Magpie came to life.
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To apply some manner of Dewey Decimal System to allthethings I discover and want to hold up all sparkly in front of the world, you’ll find them tagged across all my blogs (<– I rest my case) as shiny objects.
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The shiny objects on The Food Adventuress are usually in the form of a new cookbook or maybe a foodie flick:
The shiny objects over on Magpie Marketing are all about my favorite apps, technology & workarounds:
And as for the shiny objects here on The Little Magpie, well… God help you all. There’s no rhyme or reason to the many, many random things I love.
Buckle up! I hope you find a shiny object you love. (And if you don’t: I’ll feel better about filing them away semi-neatly). Enjoy!
