Getting Smarter about Power Up Day

Now that I've figured it out, I’m going to talk about one of the Hive things I’ve been rather stupid about. The list of those things is lengthy enough for a series. For this post, I’m just going to focus on one thing: Power Up Day, also known as PUD.

I have not been smart about PUD. (Plus my brain is not as crystal clear as it once was!) The evidence is that although for many months I have been diligently powering up quite a bit of Hive on the first of the month, I almost never receive the cute little bee badge from @hivebuzz.

_{Source: Screenshot from hivebuzz.me/jayna}

How can that be? I thought it was an oversight. Or perhaps I needed to take some important step like notifying someone. Newp. I was doing something very very wrong. I’ll get to that.

A Little Background

Now, I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, as the saying goes, so in one sense I have no business being on Hive. One should be extra sharp to be active on this platform and to make the most of it. Am I right?

This is an incredible platform for earning short-term or long-term income. Hive is, I’m sure (for those who are smarter than the other tools in the shed) especially awesome as part of a diversified crypto portfolio. But I don’t diversify. I just blog.

Side note: I'm not just writing this because I love revealing embarrassing missteps, but because I know there are many others who see all the fun and interesting things to do on Hive and are like deer in the headlights when it comes to some of the details. Please give a shout in the comments if you can relate!

What it comes down to is that I have a very ambivalent sense of commitment to money and wealth building. I wish I cared about that. I’d be so better off. But on the totem pole of things I care about, I have to say money has a tough time getting the attention it deserves.

Family and friends are most definitely at the top, followed by many other things in no particular order...

...life experiences such as travel and daily activities that bring me joy like reading, writing fiction, blogging, and playing with my cats,

...the domestic things I love, like cooking, gardening and keeping a nice home,

...leisure and entertainment,

...my job (and let me tell you, I have a huge commitment to my job),

...my admin role in The Ink Well community on Hive (also a big time commitment I am passionate about)

… and finally toward the bottom of the totem pole, after all those things, we get to money matters.

_{Source: Greyerbaby on Pixabay}

There are lesser priorities, like, oh… cleaning bathrooms and giving the dog a bath, but money is the unfortunate loser in a very full and over-committed life.

When it comes to financial stuff, I have to laugh at myself and roll my eyes. There are times I have purchased lottery tickets and never checked to see if I won. I have walked away from jobs that would have made me stinking rich. I’ve bought high and sold low. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I’m not proud of any of these things, but I do know myself. And I know that until I’m retired and have more time on my hands, not much is going to change.

Not to mention the fact that the things I love about Hive are the creative and social aspects. So everything else ends up getting short shrift.

I hope that helps to explain why I never realized...

What I Was Doing Wrong

That brings me to the stupid mistake I have been making all these months! Here it is.

I assumed that if I did my power up sometime on the 1st of the month, it would count. I wasn’t going for the prizes @traciyork talks about each month. Those are for up-and-coming Hive members who need a boost. No, I just thought I do my part and would thus get my little HiveBuzz badge.

The mistake I made was not understanding the Hive Power Up Day is not based on an individual’s clock. It’s certainly not based on a US clock. It’s UTC. And I'm in Central time. Which means, if I wait to do my power up until the evening when I usually log onto Hive and do all my Hivey stuff, it’s too late.

So on the all-important first of the month, I’ve been finishing my work day, making dinner, eating with the family, getting some exercise, cleaning up the kitchen, and finally moseying over to the computer to do my power up... and completely missing the window which closes at 6 pm my time.

Looking back at 2022, I’ve powered up 8 times, each time thinking I was doing the right thing on the right day — the first of the month. But only two of those power-ups were done before 6 pm my time.

And I made another critical error along the way. I never really looked at the transactions in my wallet! I might have glanced to see that the transactions were there, but I didn’t look closely, or I would have seen the dates. In February, April, June, July, September, and November, I powered up on the 1st of the month for me, but it was actually the 2nd of the month in UTC time.

Another mistake? Not carefully reading @hivebuzz's posts or @traciyorks posts, both of which provide clear notes about the UTC time, like this one in the latest Hive Buzz PUD post:

Traci York even provides a link to a countdown timer in her posts. You can see the latest one, with lots of great info and contest details here.

Sigh! Live and learn!

And now, it's time to go power up... and start planning my New Year's resolutions to be smarter and more attentive to details!

On a final note, you can check your own badges and metrics, and find lots of great info about Hive Buzz projects and see the countdown by going to hivebuzz.me and entering your Hive username.

Thanks for reading!

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Photo credits: All of the photos in this post were taken by me with my iphone and belong to me, unless otherwise noted.

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