Good morning to everyone, especially?

You reading this!

Last spring I started sharing regular “good morning to everyone especially” videos on Instagram.

These short clips were initially a response to the internet’s “good morning to everyone except” trend. (I liked the positive spin of highlighting things I love!) They were also a quick, easy way for me to show up on Instagram without letting the app take over my life 😅

As the year wore on, my social media motivation continued to oscillate, and I experimented with other types of posts: longer voiceovers reading my writing aloud, casually edited carousels, videos talking directly to the camera… But none of these approaches stuck. It’s not that I have to pick a single way to share, of course. I’ve just struggled to feel consistently satisfied with what I create and how it’s received—and each time I step back from the platform with “lighter” sharing, I seem to find myself drawn back in. (And not particularly fulfilled by that investment.)

While talking to Sean the other day, I realized the happiest I recently felt about Instagram was during the height of my good morning videos. They were fun! They let me allude to larger topics in a low-stakes, low-effort way! They took the perfect amount of time to create! They didn’t drain my capacity for other creative pursuits!

So I’m bringing them back in tentative hopes they’re a solution to my ongoing overthinking re social media. The plan is to share just surface-level tidbits on Instagram—after all, it’s a visual platform prioritizing videos—and use this blog or other freelance pitches for everything else (particularly deeper thoughts).

I’m also limiting how much time I spend on the good mornings. First rule: One take for the video (or voiceover on existing video) unless something goes terribly wrong and it’s inaudible. Second rule: Less than five minutes to add accessibility subtitles, write a brief caption, and post. I can devote the rest of my daily screen time limit to engaging with people I care about.

Here’s hoping this helps me feel like I’m in the right middle ground: Not fully leaving the original platform I loved while also not losing myself in it.