Many of you probably saw a post from Forbes last week about the 14 things successful people do at the weekend. A fluff piece if ever I saw one – you only have to look at the title to see that. But an OK fluff piece. A few contributors offer advice and it’s pulled together as a post.
I was amazed that they found 14, and thought they’d stretched it a bit with a few of them. The key points were to make time for friends and family, socialise, get exercise, take in some sport or culture, switch off from technology, relax etc. And to avoid chores (number 1 on my list every weekend). I’d had a fairly chilled weekend myself, a bit of a home alone one, and had managed to do pretty much all of those, and I didn’t really give it much thought beyond that.
When I wrote about lists a few months back I made mention of this type of content. It’s subjective, not to be taken too seriously and passes a few minutes. As someone who curates content for others I have learned that these fluff piece do seem to engage and to get people interacting – hard as it may be for the social HR/Recruitment commentariat to stomach, but some less social savvy followers enjoy it.
And so I shared the Forbes post on LinkedIn, not to everyone’s approval. The overall view was that the post was patronising, and we didn’t need Forbes to tell us how to spend the weekend. Which is true…except I’m not sure how many readers would have thought that the article was a checklist of things they ought to be doing.
As I said at the time of the HR Power Tweeters list furore, I think some are in danger of over intellectualising the thought processes behind this type of content. There’s a place for all of it – the navel gazing posts, the think piece posts, the humorous posts, the photo montage posts, the list posts…and the fluffy posts.
And, of course, even the cat photos… 😉
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I hate fluff and nonsense. But then you probably already knew that.
Actually that’s not entirely true. I like a bit of nonsense when I’m with friends having a drink.
I didn’t have my specs on and misread chores for cheese. I was going to protest at anyone telling me to avoid cheese at the weekend.
Nice post.
I confess – the Forbes thing pissed me off at first glance. And on reading your post – I feel calmer now. Nicely done Merv, I’m off to see the fluff and nonsense doctor now, though I draw the line at cats 🙂
Cats are the only thing to do at the weekend ….