I am aware that I had to declare myself too fatigued to undertake much work on the blog this weekend, and I am equally aware that I have just published another blog. I think this needs explanation, especially since many of you expressed kind support in response to my initial declaration.
Some, too, seemed to be genuinely concerned. I appear to do this every couple of months or so, and I appreciate that concern, although those who know me well recognise that this is part of a pattern in my life. John Christensen, with whom I worked very closely for over a decade, always commented that I could work flat out for eight weeks and then collapse in a heap, needing recuperation. I have been going flat out for more than eight weeks. The trip I am taking to Edinburgh in two weeks' time will be part of that recuperation, although there will be an afternoon of light work as part of the process.
Why do I do this? I have only recently come to understand the process, and that has required me to accept that I am both autistic and have ADHD, which is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, although I greatly resent the suggestion that it is a disorder, or that there is any deficit involved.
The autistic characteristic explains my dedication to writing an average of more than three posts a day on this blog for more than 20 years. The ADHD aspect explains my continual enthusiasm for looking at issues from new angles to create what I hope might be new insights into them. The combination has ensured the longevity of this blog.
I did a little research on that longevity using a couple of AI search engines this weekend and discovered that this is a decidedly unusual achievement. Most blogs last only a few months. Daily blogs have an even lower life expectancy. The number that have been sustained over the period I have maintained this one, for with multiple postings per day, is tiny. I am, perhaps, amongst a few dozen people in the world who have ever done such a thing. At the same time, over the last two years, I have also been publishing a daily video, sometimes more than one a day. I am told that this is an exceptional level of output.
To me, it seems normal. It is what I do. It is the way in which I understand the world around me. My ideas are formed at my fingertips. This, by and large, is also true of my YouTube videos, for which outline scripts are prepared in advance of filming. So not writing creates a sense of frustration that makes things more difficult than if I do write.
The actual cause of my stress and fatigue is that very often I am not able to achieve as much as I want, not that I have done too much.
This is true at present. I have not been able to produce a summary of my thinking on Modern Monetary Theory, nor have I had the chance to develop the issues around local authorities and their funding as a core component in the revival of the UK economy, which I wish to spend time on. It is this that causes me stress and burns me out.
It also means that I do not fully understand what people mean when they tell me to relax. For me, writing is relaxation. Writing this blog is not work. Nor, to a very large degree, is making videos like work. They are not the cause of my feeling tired, so I have had to think about what is, and what could give way if I am to achieve the things that I want.
One thing that has to give way is the numerous requests now being sent to me for comment and support on other people's projects. In the last week, I think I have received at least one request to review someone's ideas or project each day. Many of the documents I have been sent are up to 100 pages long and would often require considerable time input to provide the requested response. I know people ask me to do this very politely, and I am flattered that they are seeking my opinion, but the reality is that the more time I spend on this, the less time I have to do my own work, and that only increases my stress. I will therefore decline all such invitations in the future unless they come from someone such as a political party or a major think tank I have already worked with. Please accept my apologies in advance, but I simply cannot provide the time input people would like me to deliver. Trying to do so is wearing me out.
The other thing taking a lot of my time is the comments here on the blog. In practice, this is the only forum where I moderate comments. On YouTube, X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Substack and elsewhere, comments on my posts are not moderated because there is no time to do that. This has not proved to be a problem. On YouTube in particular, where the level of comments can be very high, and indeed much higher than here, the positivity is generally extraordinarily high, and I appreciate that fact. The number of idiots is low, and they are generally called out by others. That space moderates itself as a result.
I am, however, spending up to four hours a day moderating comments here, and, in terms of my overall output, I am wondering whether this is now as useful as it once might have been. Given that I am now working at least 12 hours a day on average during the working week and four or more hours on most days at the weekend, it seems that comment moderation might be the one thing that needs to go if I am to manage my workload and achieve my own goals.
This would worry me because some spam occasionally gets through the filters, and I would need a mechanism to prevent it, which would involve other moderators. It would also mean that I would not be offering the personal response service I am effectively providing to those who raise questions about technical issues. But, if I am honest, the development of AI over the last year or so does mean that many people could find answers to the questions they ask me by posting the material they are querying into an AI search engine and asking for an explanation of a point of detail about it there. In most cases, they would get the answers they need without difficulty. I am therefore spending a lot of my working life substituting for those who do not wish to use AI to answer questions that they could resolve in that way, and I am no longer sure that this is the best use of my time.
Why have I explained all this? It is because I am seeking your guidance on what I should prioritise. Please feel free to comment, but I have also put the options in questionnaire format below.
What should I prioritise?
- The blog
- YouTube
- Developing new ideas
- Writing omnibus explanatory materials, for example, on MMT
- Blog moderation
- Answering individual queries
- Events
You can have four votes.
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I would suggest you should prioritise, first and foremost, yourself, your mental and physical health and wellbeing, and your close relationships. Second, whatever else brings you joy and satisfaction. And then everything else.
You are probably having most impact right now via the reach of the Youtube videos, but would you have achieved any of your past achievements via that route? Perhaps you could streamline your workflow (and cut some duplication and stress) by limiting the blogposts to transcripts and links. I’d miss the other posts, but perhaps it is not the posts that take the time but the moderation.
Can you cut moderation, or delegate that to others? Perhaps the community here is strong enough to deal with idiots, without moderation, but you’ll still want to block some commenters and delete some comments. Perhaps some other people can be trusted to do that for you?
Four hours of your day on moderation is ridiculous. Part of moderation is, I think, your response to comments. Would you miss it? Do you see insightful comments on the Youtube videos that you want to follow up, for example?
Noted thanks.
I will be posting about recruiting moderators
The answer surely is what works for you
Your time is precious and you are right to prioritise and be willing to turn down things that you deem to be less deserving of your attention.
I know you wish to avoid getting involved in politics, but from my perspective, one of things most urgently needed in the UK right now, is for the Greens to develop a credible economic manifesto which stands up to scrutiny. One that breaks with the neoliberal consensus and incorporates the thinking you have developed. I don’t know if they are reaching out to you on this, but in my view they should be.
Thanks for all that you do.
Thanks.
Very briefly, focus on developing new ideas. The blog is well established with excellent main texts expressing your valued thoughts. There are plenty of good contributions from respondents. Although your comments are always appreciated, it is time consuming for you to be doing this, especially when you have to explain where people are wrong, or when you have to explain things that they can read elsewhere on the blog.
The outline of your thinking is clear to most of us, but all of us need time to mull over new ideas that emerge from this outline.
Thankss
On new ideas, I like your idea of addressing the importance of local government, which is being undermined by right wing idiots who only see it as a cost and not as a benefit.
As someone in my late 60s, retired for nearly 3 years, and also likely AuDHD, I can relate to working flat out and then falling in a heap for a while.
I haven’t looked at that in terms of weeks, but will now – I’ve looked at cycles over years, at which scale life events also have an impact (and I appear to have a two year masking cycle).
Incidentally, here in Australia, our NDIS has provided reasonable support for autists 65 and under, but there are “cost saving”/“sustainability” changes underway which are of concern to the autistic community. Anyone over 65 is supposed to get whatever help they need via aged care, but aged care organisations know very little about neurodivergent people at the moment (there are official strategic plans to fix that, but they’re just getting underway).
Thanks Kayleen.
I’m not sure which boxes to tick. I believe you have the knowledge, enthusiasm, wide support, dedication, experience and inspiration to change economic public policy for the better. Much better. There aren’t many other people around who fall into that category. Given all of that, I think we can safely leave it to you to decide what to prioritise to provide the best chance. If you decide you need to spend less time talking to us lot, we will understand.
Thanks, Cliff
I thought that you were looking that you might explode last weekend. Not for the first time it occurs to me that you need help.
You are displaying all the same symptoms of a small trader who needs to invite others to join in to grow the business.
I have understood that you have found this difficult in the past.
You need a good agent , a lawyer ,an accountant , a manager and a larger family.
You should ask around.
Where does the money come from and do I
Where does the money come from? There is no margin already.
“No margin” is why you need fresh blood in the organisation; someone to find new revenue. But that means letting go of control, which for someone with your personality may be a price not worth paying. That’s OK. This is your project; run it the way you want to. As others have said, your mental health is what should be top priority. Do what makes you happy. The rest of us will have to find ways to amplify your work without your involvement.
It is not a matter of letting go control. I was more than happy to do this in other organisations where skills could be replicated but there aren’t too many who are doing what I am in this country, ORthe world come to that. If there were, I would not need to do this.
I think you should firstly make sure you reserve time for yourself above all else for birdwatching and whatever else makes you feel rested and well.
After that, I think you should let the blog police itself as regards comments and, if you have concerns about malicious comments, appoint someone/use AI to screen the comments to filter out malice and spam.
I have managed a large (50k+) Facebook group for a decade. Originally, particularly during the Brexit run-up, I used to try, along with other moderators, to respond to/filter all comments. At the peak, I was spending 8-12 hours/day responding to comments and posts, and it was exhausting and eating up all my time. To address this, at first, I tried setting daily limits on time spent. That helped a bit, but I ended up stressing about the comments I wasn’t responding to, which was almost as exhausting as spending the time responding.
Eventually I had to recognise that it is the nature of social media that, if a channel is successful, then the response demand will always grow to be unmanageable and that the only viable approach is to leave it largely to the channel subscribers to address the commentary.
So now I have some AI and app filters that automatically remove commentary that meets specific harmfulness criteria and a mailbox that accepts complaints about moderation. From time to time, (once a month or so), I scan the mailbox and respond to complaints, (I actually get very few, surprisingly), and apologise/rectify injustices.
Every couple of weeks, I dip into the comments, respond to those that seem most interesting/relevant to the group mission and take the pulse of group opinion and direction.
Occasionally, when an automated analysis of filtered/rejected comments indicates a trend towards one or another violation of group policies, I pin a post highlighting the violation and reminding subscribers of the relevant policy and, if appropriate, I may ban specific offenders.
That all seems to work quite well and the members do a good job of policing the group and keeping it on track themselves via their comments and responses.
I don’t regulate the time I spend on the group, but it’s certainly under 8 hours a month.
I would suggest you might try a similar sort of approach.
All noted and to research.
I was told recently by you that I have commented some 11,000 times over the years and I was astounded. That is a lot of time spent speaking to the dark.
I come here because your blog talks about what really matters and what should be being talked about in our stupid media and universities, pubs and even the public sector but is not.
What you’ve revealed here voluntarily to us is a vulnerability?
Over the years I have reflected on what drives you. At one time I had considered your ego – and by God why not – you need to have the minerals to stand up to the well paid naysayers and numpties lying to us about the world. And I’ve seen the same ‘egotistical’ label being thrown at Steve Keen by of all people, George Monbiot, who is not shy at telling people what he thinks either (which is good).
But I have also ALWAYS felt that you (1) give a damn and (2) there is a rock solid morality to you about it and (3) you are clear sighted and have audited the problems in the way that only a good accountant could. The ‘accounts’ on the consequences of Neo-liberalism on society do not lie and you have gone and looked. And I saw this for myself in Cambridge, there just a few feet away from you. A real drive for social and economic justice grounded in REALITY.
What I don’t want to do is feel that I am contributing to your ADHD or feeding it or whatever on the blog.
Therefore I feel for me, that you should be focussing on the developmental side of your ideas – Christ – I mean local government really does need sorting out for sure. I work in the jocker!! Its a mess!
As I said – I’ve seen you produce the ideas around resource accounting, MMT (debunking the liars) Taxing Wealth etc., after you achieved country by country reporting.
If you had other moderators I would still turn up and support the blog. But only you know what the blog means to you. You could still drop by with your bigger ideas and draw comment from the likes of me and others on the blog or ask me to proof read something anytime.
I will be in touch, PSR and appreciate your comment, but you are not a stress exacerbating my ADHD. That comes out in the writing in the first place and I’m not giving that up. Taking on near liberalism is a lifelong task and it cannot be done the same way on YouTube as it is here I like both media, but this one wILL last longer.
Richard I am so relieved that you confirm that the blog will continue. I can’t tell you how much I look forward to reading it every day. You are my main source of reliable, honest comment on the news of the day. Also, I now know so much about economics and am able to discuss how neoliberalism is destroying our well-being in this country. I can’t thank you enough, and I’m sure I’m one of many. Please look after yourself and take time to work out how best to continue.
Thanks
Request only concise comments. Consider altering the ‘word limit’. Maybe 100 words or less. You can always invite a commenter to write more.
In appreciation of your output. Joe
Thanks Joe.
Appreciated
I think you left the most most important part, taking care of yourself and your mental wellbeing. My brother in law is autistic, but bipolar too, A heady combination. He will flog himself into exhaustion. Now he is a severe case, and hasn’t your mental resources. He was a highly qualified welder in atomic submarines etc in Devonport, but his doctor said he was no longer fit for welding in Devonport Naval Dockyard. The stress has destroyed his once steady hands. Now I’m not suggesting there is anything similar with you, but you are unnecessarily stressing yourself. So have a think and decide what should be a good period to go flat out, maybe seven weeks, or less hours per day. Listen to your body, and your wife.
I hope I’m not patronising you, I just am concerned that you will overstress and overstretch yourself to the detriment of yourself and family.
She gave me medical check today. There is an advantage to be married to somebody who has run an A&E department in her time- at Guy’s hospital. The good news was I passed with flying colours.
Oh, that is good news, seems like you married a treasure,and a nurse too. I am so pleased to hear that you are A1.
She is a doctoe.
You said in the article that the two things you want to develop and that are causing you stress are the summary of MMT and issues around funding local councils. So are these your 2 priorities?
I am an avid, recent follower of your work and its been a godsend to me to have a reliable fact based description of how our economy works. Essential reading for all I think, as it protects us from the disinformation and scaremongering etc, etc,..
So thank you very much! I’m promoting your work to friends, family, acquaintances etc as its eye opening and accessible, even to lay people like myself with no economics background. I find it calming and reassuring in the midst of the whirlwind of chaos it feels like we are in.
And as I will becoming more politically active, I want to come from a place grounded in real economic understanding. (And values which I think should at the heart of politics.)
Thank you
Good luck, and God bless you.
I have very clearly voted for what I believe will give the best outreach, not what I personally would find most appealing. For instance, YouTube has mechanisms which push some material to new readers, whereas the blog has little of that sort.
But really, what works best for you is the best way to use your energy, as directing it towards matters which you find arduous (moderation…) is most likely to wear you down for no longer-term benefit.
Paul
Thanks
Just thinking out-loud…. Perhaps just restrict comments on your blog to one post a day. The post that you think most important or know either to be the most controversial, you want to see, gather and gauge the reactions or just where you want further input and feedback. I don’t think providing the opportunity for comments is necessary on all of your posts, especially the ones where you are essentially providing facts and/or analyses of facts. For example, I would put MMT in this category
i will think about that.
Difficult to offer comment/advice Richard. As someone else said its what feels best for you. Reducing word count on comments would seem appropriate , and , again as someone said – maybe just limit the blog text to video scripts.
Four hours a day on moderating – does seem an enormous commitment of your time. Its great to get your comeback but probably not always worth your time.
Is there an AI application which could scrape/ summarise and filter out the comments into the few most salient critiques/agreement on your posts – so you could maybe just respond to that rather than scrolling through all the individual comments?
When you are responding to the day’s economic news you often make points you have made many many times before. This is probably inevitable – given that you/we want to respond to daily news, but maybe there is a way of reducing such posts to a few bullet points linking to your other posts for those who want more detail.
It is a massive achievement to have such a long lived daily blog – as you say it may be unique, but please don’t blow yourself up!
I ssum redera a
a
I assume readers are new and I dislike the link appeoach – it turns me off instantly.
I will look at AI scraping.
As a newly diagnosed autistic, who also objects to the disorder and deficit descriptions, and don’t think I would have been able to achieve what I have without hyperfocus, attention to detail and a creative mind. I’m currently struggling with burnout. I would suggest that you identify what brings you joy and what drains you of energy, so you avoid recurring burnout every 8 weeks. You are technically retired so a day or 2 birdwatching/week should be allowed.
You clearly love writing for the blog and reading what people comment, but not the heavy duty moderation you currently do. So I would suggest finding either automated ways of moderating or another human to help so you can just skim read to the things you find interesting.
Also should you be posting 7 days/week or aiming to have at least 1 day off a week?
If you are autistic and ADHD combined with high intelligence you’re going to have a very creative mind so using it to develop new ideas is important.
You want to reach new audiences, but does it have to be you speaking and recording videos or could someone else present your material?
I didn’t realise I was autistic, but I think my lovely boss realised when I told him couldn’t cope with people and face to face meetings but I was fine with factual work at home! And despite still having a really low social battery, I can read and listen to heavy material fine.
I would take time to evaluate what you should be doing less/or none of and plan more total downtime. Given you’re retired you should be saying goodbye to things you don’t enjoy or sap your energy.
Thank you, Hazel. I do impact take at least two days out of Home a week doing things like birdwatching but sometimes I am moderating as well, which shows how pervasive that activity has become. I do think a time for re-appraisal of priorities is the important issue now.
Relatively new reader here (the past year) but my reaction to this is that you need to decide what is most important to you to progress and prioritise those items. Only you can answer that truthfully.
In terms of engagement, my view without having full knowledge of your analytics is that your YouTube is by far the best engagement channel you have right now because of the way it pushes your message to potential new audiences. I count myself among them. Your blog is simply preaching to the converted. Up to you to decide who you’d prefer to engage with, but spending 4 hours a day responding to these comments does not seem like a very efficient way to spend your time. Unfair of me to judge that however.
Some advice:
– assign trusted community members the task of moderating the blog. Do this and there is no need to reduce or restrict the content you post, comments aside.
– don’t feel you must reply to everything. For things you can be confident your community are well versed in, leave the conversation to them. Chime in when you really need to steer or correct, but align your commenting approach with your engagement priorities.
– focus on YouTube. The algorithm is the source of your growing audience.
– and this is more of a personal suggestion… switch slightly the focus on YouTube from repeating well-trodden messaging towards a solutions focus. We’ve heard repeatedly in recent times your clear views on money creation, but just as valuable would be material on where govts need to take this thinking after accepting the fundamentals.
Thank you, Shane. This is a really useful comment because I tend to agree that the YouTube channel is impact the biggest outreach opportunity that I have created. Having added 345,000 followers in a bit over a year that has to be true. Admittedly, traffic here is also grown significantly but not by as much. I think her partner is emerging from the comments. tank you for adding a different voice to the debate.
You really shouldn’t be spending 4 hours a day on moderation. I appreciate it and the commenter community, but are there other options? They should be considered.
I can’t tell you what to prioritise, if the goal is to maximise sustainability. That depends on what works for you and what you are uniquely equipped for.
If the goal is maximising what spreads the word about making the world a better place, then I think we need a resource that WE can use in the ways WE are each uniquely equipped for, so I think a combination of day by day commentary, videos long & short/blog/omnibus summaries, and a searchable resource (glossary & pdf library).
I don’t think you should be doing for others what we can do for ourselves using non-oligarch search engines.
Thanks
Robert J hit the nail on the head!
I second that!
Judy
Richard.
Please put yourself and your needs first. Come back when you are rested and ready. You have a wonderfully supportive family around you.
Bernard.
I am surprised to see so few votes for Blog Moderation.
I think that is an essential activity to be done by you (not a moderator) and that it is a big part of why people come here.
The interaction with you is what makes it different, it is what makes this blog “sticky” and it it certainly what keeps me coming back.
I note that Heather Cox Richardson does few direct responses and that makes a big difference. I read her every morning – but that’s the end of it.
(She has a different point of contact with her readers. She does two Facebook Lives a week, asks for questions to be discussed that day, and those talks feed off that interaction.
It’s different – and I prefer the way you do it. )
Giving up blog moderation would be quite a wrench for me. It has been a part of life for a long time however, I have to be realistic about what is possible and the growth of traffic on the blog has meant to what used to be in occupation that took most an hour day is now eating into time available for things I want to do and so I have to find a new way to do this even though I would rather keep the direct relationships going. Sometimes one has to accept the inevitable.
Separate moderation from response. Your sites are popular enough to generate a community of moderators who could keep things running smoothly without the need for you to review every post.
Encourage more interaction between readers, but respond less yourself. Most comments are directed to you because you respond to most posts. We become habituated to addressing you, rather than having a wider discussion of the points you raise.
Keep up the great work, but less of it!
Thanks, Andy. All good points.
Whilst the poll uses the word ‘what’ it is actually asking ‘how’ – how should you spend time and effort. To answer that, it’s important to state ‘what’ you are really striving for (which stems from ‘why’ you’re doing so).
Writing the blog may be an end in itself (writing helps me think). But, assuming a broader aim is political change, it would help to define that in some measurable way. Only then ask the ‘how’ question. Thanks for all you’re doing.
I was very interested that Local Government finance is on your agenda and I look forward to reading your ideas. The current system is chaotic and dysfunctional because local government has been undermined by every UK government for the last 50 years.
“I greatly resent the suggestion that it is a disorder, or that there is any deficit involved.” Exactly! I have been saying that very thing for quite a long time now. Variety is a fundamental characteristic pretty much everything.
as someone who discovered that i was ADHD about 8 years ago, and only later gradually understood the autistic side as well, I will say this, it makes perfect sense, Richard.
as you say, the autistic side explains the sustained specialist interest and expertise, and the adhd side the relentless new font of ideas. it also explains the fatigue.
autistic burnout is very real, and is not something to be messed with. it can leave you with lasting damage which can be impossible to reverse.
I’m pretty sure I encountered that during lockdown whilst trying to work at home whilst the schools were closed. my capacity to handle noise now, e.g. from my kids whilst i’m doing something, is not what it once was. I become rapidly irritated and need to then have my own peace and quiet. I gather for you it’s stuff like bird watching – for me it’s cycling through the countryside, or lying in a dark, quiet room.
take care of yourself first and foremost. that’s not selfishness, it’s preservation.
Thank you for sharing.
May I suggest a couple of ideas about the blog, as I would hate to see it change too fundamentally.
Perhaps contributors can be discouraged from posting courtesy messages, for example expressing thanks for all you do. We all are very grateful for all you do, but every courtesy post needs moderation. Perhaps we should think about that a little (and i am aware that I do it as much as anyone.)
If you can accept others help with moderation, perhaps that could be limited so only you can decide to ban someone and, perhaps, even delete posts. Your assistants could be tasked with commenting on difficult posts and drawing your attention to the ones that need action.
I would agree with reducing the word limit and, perhaps, normally limiting an individual to one or two comments on each blog post.
Thanks
Perhaps with regards to moderation, you could perhaps once people have posted here maybe 10 times without issue allow them to post without moderation and allow the rest of the community to flag inappropriate posts or users, to take some of the strain off your having to read every single post in advance
That would be far too low a threshold. I have had people post for up to 30 times before they reveal their true trolling nature.
The foregoing comments tells it all. 4 hours of moderation is a waste of your valuable time (2 hours of it anyway, the other 2 you can use to rest and reflect). Seriously, where you can delegate just do it (review after a month and revise if necessary. I have been there at the driven front end and it only leads to illness. Delegation is a wonderful process that can and should lead to better efficiency, satisfaction, team-building and the expansion of the blog. Surely the best outcome! (NRN)
More to come tomorrow.
It might help cut the time you spend in answering questions if you posted somewhere prominently: ‘If you have questions arising out of the subject posted, please search the Glossary.’
I looked up ‘Tax’ in the Glossary which in great detail explains about the ‘government as household’ misunderstanding that crops up so often. But it has only two likes! Perhaps your very willing comments in the moderation is encouraging laziness?
You may be righr.