A few months ago I wrote a blog post called Time… about how time had been moving differently for me since I was working in a job outside of education, even more since the pandemic started. I mentioned in that post that I wasted a lot of time doing silly things like scrolling on Facebook, and I said I wanted to start living more intentionally. I meant it when I typed it, but I’m one of those people who is sometimes good at giving advice and usually terrible at taking my own advice.
When I wrote that blog post, I had applied for the job back in education that I now have, but I hadn’t gotten a call for an interview yet. At that point I didn’t think I would get the call because it had been over a month since I’d applied, and that was when I kind of resigned myself to the fact that I probably wasn’t going to get it. And then, about a week later I was offered an interview, and about a week after that I was offered the job!
Since then it’s been a whirlwind–applying for grad school, getting registered for classes, starting my new job, starting classes, plus the regular life things, which there have been more of since we got vaccinated and have felt more comfortable being out in the world again, so time has been even more at a premium. I still hadn’t been sleeping enough, and in the free time I did have, I often defaulted to scrolling on Facebook just because my brain was overwhelmed, not knowing what to do or where to start. Still, I knew that social media wasn’t where I really wanted to be spending my time.
I’ve been following an entrepreneur I really respect for a few years, and they started offering a program that teaches you how to prioritize and manage your time better. I decided to sign up, and one of the first lessons was on identifying where you’re currently spending your time. As part of that, they encouraged us to look at our “Screen Time” if we had iPhones. I did, and I was appalled. I knew I spent a lot of time escaping on my phone, but it was painful to see just how much–there were a couple of days in the last week that I had spent almost five hours on my phone. And, of that time, the majority was spent on…you guessed it, social media.
I’d been thinking about making changes to how my phone was set up, just to make it less likely that I would end up on social media, because a lot of the time I didn’t even go onto social media on purpose. I would unlock my phone to do something specific, see that I had a Facebook notification, go onto Facebook to see what it was, and realize several minutes later that I was still on Facebook and had no idea why I’d picked my phone up in the first place. When I saw how much time I was wasting, I knew I had to do something immediately.
First, I moved all of my social media apps off of my home screen, onto the second page so I wouldn’t see notifications immediately when I unlocked my phone. Then, I put the rest of the apps on my home screen into folders, which take up very little room at the top of my screen, and set my wallpaper as a quote that reminds me how I do want to spend my time. I’ve also been noticing how often I pick up my phone out of habit, and have worked on cutting down on that too. In the last week, since I made these changes, my phone use has dropped by 65%. SIXTY.FIVE.PERCENT. That’s HOURS that I’ve been able to take back just in a week! Hours that I’ve redirected into things that mean more to me than seeing the same posts that I’ve already scrolled through over again. With that time, I’ve had more meaningful conversation with The Bearded One. I’ve finished reading multiple books. And I’ve gotten more homework done without scrambling at the last minute. I’m more relaxed, I’m more focused, and, to be honest, I’m happier since I made this change. I’ve even been getting more sleep.
So, if you find yourself scattered, spending way more time than you want to on social media, I highly recommend making this kind of change. You’ll be glad you did!
growingmoxie.com 