Social media is both an extremally valuable use of my time and also an extremally unvaluable use of my time. It’s a paradox.
There’s no getting around the fact that building up my social media profile has generated a lot of value for my company and my brand. For years, the idea of a “personal brand” was something that made me want to vomit, but since I decided to take it seriously, I can absolutely say it has been worth it.
But there is an obvious dark side and an obvious way that social media can be a net negative in all our lives.
The problem with social media is that the smartest people in the world are all conspiring to get you to stop what you’re doing and do something else instead.
So every second I spend on social media is a second that I am investing my time and energy into some else’s dream.
I’ve mitigated this by removing all social media apps from my phone. As such, I only use social media on desktop. I don’t create any of my posts through the social platforms, but rather I use an app called hypefury.
This sounds good in theory, but those tricky companies still find ways to infiltrate my focus. Even through desktop and even with notifications turned off, I’ve still been slowly spending more and more time on social media. Scrolling and clicking around and getting dumber by the second.
The first step is to recognize the problem. I see the problem and I am cutting the head off of the snake before it gets worse.
So, here’s the new mission.
Every day, I will continue to do my rounds on social media in the mornings. I always log on and interact with the people who comment on my posts. I have a daily engagement task I set for myself and I plan to continue completing my daily task. Also, I will continue to send all the DM’s and requests I need to, as social media is an important tool I use to book guests on my podcast.
But after that, I’m done.
I won’t sign into any social media apps (INCLUDING YOUTUBE!) again until the next morning. At which point, I will again complete my work and then sign off for the day.
I will use social media, I won’t let social media use me.
It will be hard. Sometimes, the patterns are so engrained that I would log into Twitter without even noticing I was doing it. I will have to be very mindful of my actions.
But I am very confident that within a few days, I will notice my focus and my productivity increase 10X.