I set my reading goal in 2019 for 60 books a year instead of 100 because I think I can manage 5 books a month on top of some other big projects I’m hoping to complete this year. I have already hit my 5 books for January and I told myself I needed to make some progress on some of those big looming projects this week so I told myself I need a week of ZERO FACEBOOK.
I opened up my laptop this morning and without thinking, I clicked on FACEBOOK on my bookmark bar and BOOM:
I had set up the Blocksite Sunday to not let me on Facebook and while I knew in my BRAIN that I was avoiding the time-suck that is Facebook this week, I still ended up clicking that button on instinct which is maybe A SIGN THAT I SPEND TOO MUCH TIME ON FACEBOOK.
I find that the lure of social media is much stronger when I have big, amorphous projects looming. I’m great with a task list, but big goals without clear paths forward and I get too overwhelmed and so I spend 2 hours surfing social media instead of just taking any bite out of the elephant to begin with.
(I hope you know the metaphor I’m alluding too or you’re going to think my vegetarianism took a dark turn.)
I also find myself using social media in those “buffer” areas in my day. Like, if I’ve mopped the floors and don’t really have time to start another task before picking up the kids…I’ll just pull out my phone and scroll to kill the time.
Whereas if I added those 30-minute buffers up during my day I’d have several hours extra to do stuff…just not in one chunk of time so they get wasted.
It’s not that I’m trying to place value in my productivity – that’s opposite of the self-love mantras I’m trying to train myself on. I just have these goals I really want to work towards – Launching a business and Writing a book – and they both need a lot of time and attention but they don’t have a clear set of task lists to use and so my anxiety pushes me towards social media instead of towards my goals where I can make any progress whatsoever.
So this week? No Facebook and no reading (which is not a bad way to fill time, but it doesn’t help me with my goals) for the next 5 days and I’ll see if I make any more progress towards those big goals or if I start substituting more Twitter and Instagram to fill those voids!
WOW. (That was originally not in uppercase, but I think the situation calls for it… so again, WOW.) If I would take a page out of your book, perhaps I’d find myself achieving something besides watching an entire season of a Netflix show. How huge that you are being so proactive about avoiding time-sucks and working on your goals. (By the way, I really think you’d like the planner I am getting ready to use… once I can get down to figuring out my goals. It’s not a to-do list kind of planner, but rather a heart-centered life focus planner that helps you look at what kind of life you want to create, where your heart is and what your heart goals are… really makes me think of you and how intentional you are. Lots of intentional creation and positivity.)
I’m excited for your projects and can’t wait to see what you do!
Is that an extension you have set on your computer or within facebook. I wonder if there is something like that for my phone/ipad???
I would like to cut myself off from facebook by a certain time each night or do a blackout period…. Just time to focus on other things, like reading a book or learning to play my ukelele. I am like you, some times I bring up facebook mindlessly and then get sucked into reading/looking at things for an hour.
When I was writing I set up “work hours” for myself and gave myself breaks every half an hour or so. I treated like a regular job and it sucked, but it worked. I got up and got dressed and went somewhere new (Starbucks or the library) and set up space and created a habit of it. It wasn’t perfect – but it DID feel more like “a job” then, and I got my whole book pretty much written under those circumstances. A few times I even copped a booth at a local bar early in the afternoon on weekends.)