How I Cut Back on Social Media
Let me put it out there: I spend a lot of time on social media. My job, my career, my blog… they’re basically all wrapped up in a big tangle of social media platforms. That was precisely how I rationalized spending so many hours with my eyes glued to my phone or scrolling through Facebook. But this “necessity” wasn’t really true and it was making me a little crazy.
Last year our church went through a sermon series on rest. It was a tough series for me because it’s something I’m admittedly terrible at. (I even wrote a blog post about it!) But I recognized that I was in need of a change and “cutting back” wasn’t cutting it. I needed some real boundaries and some real change. Social media seemed like the right place to start because I could easily waste a chunk of time scrolling on my phone when I could be using that time to truly rest. It took some trial and error but here’s how I learned to cut back on social media.
I don’t use social media on Sundays
I definitely thought this was going to be impossible. It almost felt like too big of a step, but I realized I was just afraid of a hard change. So I tried it. It turns out it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. For nearly 6 months, I’ve stayed off social media on Sundays. I’ve made a few slip-ups and there have been moments where I’ve just completely forgotten, but I’m happy with the progress I’ve made! 99% of the time I find that I can stay completely off social media for a whole day with no problem. No Facebook, no Instagram, no nothin’.
I turned off the notifications on my phone
This one was simple. I turned off notifications for Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Without notifications constantly popping up, it was easier to go a (relatively) long period of time without being prompted to check on things. Yes, I’m slower to respond to Instagram comments. No, it hasn’t ruined my life. I also put my social media apps in a separate folder on my phone so they’re not staring me in the face when I unlock my phone.
I use an app to track my usage
I downloaded an app called Moment which tells me how many hours I’m using my phone each day. It will send me reminders if I’m using my phone more than average and I find that it keeps me accountable. If you don’t want to download an app, just check your battery usage on your phone. It will tell you which apps are using most of your battery. (For me, it’s always Instagram.) Just seeing the number of hours I spend on my phone can make me think twice about opening it up.
I set aside time for specific tasks
I don’t consider time on social media to be wasted time because as a food blogger, it can be a really great way to grow my business! But it’s easy for me to fall down the rabbit hole and get distracted with what’s in my news feed. When I need to get things done, I block off chunks of time (sometimes as shorts as 5 minutes) and focus on that one thing. For example, if I’m trying to schedule a bunch of Facebook posts, I’ll set a timer for 10 minutes and do nothing but schedule posts until that timer goes off. This keeps me focused and I find that I’m so much more productive. It’s been a helpful way for me to leverage social media without wasting a whole afternoon.
These might sound like silly little tips if you’re not a big social media user. If that’s you, I’m impressed! But if you’re like most of the people I know, you often wonder where those last 20 minutes went after you opened up your phone. Hopefully, these tips can help you make the most of your time online and carve out more time for rest, family, and the world outside of the internet!
These tips are great! Thank you for sharing. It’s definitely made me think about limiting my times and really having a purpose.
I set a specific time for Pinterest – otherwise a couple of hours will pass! I am curious as to whether you got the same amount of work done since you took Sundays off as you did before taking one day off.
I used the moment app for a while and was pretty horrified at my iPhone usage (I posted an unedited look at my usage here https://www.stitchesandpress.com/2016/08/09/tech-we-love-a-totally-unedited-look-at-my-phone-usage/).
That’s such a good idea to take one day off from social media every week. I might have to try that too!
That app definitely holds me accountable but it’s still painful to see sometimes!
I love this! I’ve been using the Realizd app to cut back. I set a limit per day and it gives me notifications throughout the day to keep me in check!
Been waiting for you to talk about this since I saw your post about no social media on Sundays. I think that’s such a great idea! I already do some of these things but I’m always wanting to find more ways to be efficient with my time and not get carried away on my phone. Awesome job!
Yes to turning off notifications! I don’t allow notifications for anything on my phone and I think it helps a lot. I really only use Instagram these days, but even that one app can be super addictive.
I love this post! I totally need to turn off my notifications — and it’s hard when your job is so closely tied to being “on” — so I love to see how you’ve made these boundaries.
Love these tips! I wanted to cut back from social media for Lent, but I feel like I ramped it up instead. Definitely going to try to implement these tips and attempt to cut back!
Great post. I just decided to take a break from blogging (beyond some already scheduled things) for a little bit. Just feeling a bit burned out.
These are great tips. I try and stay of SM on Sundays too and have no notifications on my phone. It helps so much!
Thank you for sharing! I like the idea of not using social media on Sundays and will try that.
Same! I’ll have to give that a try! Or a day thats is all family (which is Saturday for us). 🙂