BranchOut has me out on a limb. Have you been invited to Facebook's professional networking entry into the LinkedIn world? It started to clog my newsfeed until I downloaded FB Purity (http://www.fbpurity.com/ - thankfully, it's free!) which alters your Facebook home page, showing only the most relevant information by filtering out the annoying and irrelevant messages in your newsfeed. It's sweeeet!

So yes, I have been invited, but I've not accepted this invitation. However, the BranchOut request still shows up in e-mail as an alert. I feel guilty. Am I being anti-social media? Missing out on lifelong connections? Losing out on job opportunities? As it is, I get grief because I don't accept all friend requests on my personal Facebook page. Maybe I'm an oddball here, but I want to personally know people on my Feed. In fact, I do try to be courteous by telling strangers that I appreciate the invite, but to please join me on my "fan" page. They rarely do.

As someone who has never been officially diagnosed with ADD, I am already distracted enough trying to keep LinkedIn and all-a-Twitter clever and relevant, while maintaining personal AND professional Facebook pages. I would like to enjoy my life, run my business, my household, travel, raise my kids, be a good wife, neighbor, friend, daughter and dog owner.

In the past, I relished being invited (to anything!), but not anymore. Don't ask me to BranchOut. One more connection avenue, may unravel my brain. Aren't there enough ways for us to be connected professionally? Yes, I could update it all with TweetDeck or HootSuite or TweetSuite but, do people really want to get the same show on 5 different channels?

Ironically, most people who are making BranchOut requests are already connected with me. Wanna talk? Call me. Wanna connect? Write me. BranchOut? That's one tree I'm going to leave.