Distractions, Distractions, Everywhere!!! Does Anybody Else Struggle w/ Checking Email & Social Media Too Much?
I’ll admit it: I am an social media addict. Every five minutes, I have the urge to refresh my pages - Steem, Twitter, Instagram, whatever - and see if I got any new likes or comments.
It’s just so damned addicting. I never know if a new notification is around the corner. Unfortunately, the truth is that I could just check once per morning and once per evening and I’d see it all. There is no need to look over and over again.
My attention has been hacked by the internet.
Downtime - Checking on Stuff
The problem is…. as a writer, there is a lot of downtime. Here is my usual writing process:
Step 1: Think and brainstorm. Sometimes I browse the web for this, such as googling about an interesting topic or looking at steem threads for inspiration.
Step 2: Write a first draft. I try to go as fast as I can without cutting corners, getting my ideas down on the paper ASAP before nervousness or confusion can steal the creative energy.
Step 3: DOWNTIME. I need 5-10 mins to step away from the first draft. This is how my brain can start over and I’ll be able to read with fresh eyes.
Step 4: Re-read and edit the piece. After this I’m usually good, or I might do one more round of downtime/editing before I call it a day.
During this process, those 5-10 minutes of downtime are the killer. It is so awkward to sit and stare into space, over and over throughout the day… I need to do something while I wait, but it can’t be anything that will really “suck me in,” like I shouldn’t do anything meaningful. Hence, the perfect circumstance for social media.
So I check social media. I refresh my email for the hundredth time. I’m browsing my twitter feed for comments. What else can I do? I am not sure.
I already meditate twice a day for 20 mins each time, so, it’s not really about exercising my ability to sit still. Instead I suspect that my nature is to be frantic, I have a ton of fast energy in my mind. Maybe this is just how it is!
Are You Addicted to the Social Web?
Be honest with me. There is no way that I’m the only one experiencing this. Are you addicted to social media?
Most importantly, let me ask: How do you handle your social media addiction? Do you have any actionable tips for managing social media without quitting it altogether?
For me right now, social media might be a necessary evil… perhaps I should just try to avoid it during the “off hours” when I’m not writing, rather than trying to force it to not be a part of my workflow while I am writing.
IDK. Let me know what you think. As always I’m appreciative of your feedback.
Rescuetime and HabitLab are your friends. Especially Habitlab (if you use Chrome).
RescueTime is great to see how much time you spend on which site, to get an understanding of your actual computer activities. Only the premium plan has alerts when you have spent more time than targeted on a specific site/in a specific category. Although it may be a worthy investment.
HabitLab is a more basic approach but acts directly in your browser and can hide the content of a site when you've spent longer on it that day than targeted.
Of course, both still require the fairness/discipline, that you don't cheat by using an additional mobile device. It also helps to set reverse Do Not Disturb rules on your mobile devices: no notifications during your actual work time. You can also deactivate all (browser) notifications and even use focus window apps.
Personally, I work with a Pomodoro technic-based approach and when my period is done, in my down time I game or read news. Or, gasp, actually step away from my device. Which happens more and more often.
The alternative approach to blocking out social media/the internet is a habit tracker, or habit builder rather approach. This will remind you to every day take out x time to do activity x, away from your device and social media again.
While all these methods don't take the social media away from you, they can be very useful in order to experience life with less social media. If a mix of both a more focused approach and (new) habit building, you may soon be reminded that social networks aren't that awesome after all, not when compared to everything else out there.
There's a whole world out there, actually.
Addendum: when you step away from your [main] device... let the mobile ones at home as well. You will notice, you won't get more urgency calls and miss more than back in the days there were no mobile devices and a landline was all we had.
I can always rely on you to give me a detailed and actionable answer my dude! Out of everything you said, the RescueTime plugin sounds particularly juicy.
I'm scared to find out how many hours I might be wasting on certain websites... but I guess that information I need to find out lol. Getting accurate data is always a useful step on the path to trying to change anything.
re: Leaving the phone at home -- that's something I have been thinking a lot about doing too!! It is so funny how society has this idea now that it's irresponsible to leave your phone at home or something. I'm with you, we don't need to be on call 24/7.
Glad to be of help. Talent shall be allowed to flourish rather than be at the risk of burn out, burn out being a real issue for many writers. I firmly believe that social media can be damaging and contribute to burn out, especially also because of echo chambers and more recently filter bubbles. And of course the desire for likes/upvotes and the subsequent checking for that validation.
When you decide for RescueTime, which I think is a sound decision since understanding your use/patterns is key to come up with truly effective solutions, please hold keep a regular log and inform us here on Steem about your use/habits/patterns at different steps in your tracking.
RescueTime is pretty awesome a plugin, awesome in the sense of Dropbox being a “Holy Shit Tool” meaning that it just sits there and does its magic in the background. Without any intervention needed. Of course, that applied only to Dropbox when it launched, or upon first install, now almost everything is “as awesome”.
I hope that at some point in a not to distant future you will call yourself “a musician who writes to meet ends” rather than a writer. One step further on your personal roadmap. I also think that seemingly simple switch can be of huge help with your social media addiction in the sense that it refocuses your priorities.
One final tip, for now, is to decide what do you use each network for, what is the targeted use of each network. Assess the (targeted) value you get from each and then focus/tune them accordingly. I’m going to take a punt and say that Twitter may be the most valuable one for you (unless you want to wade in the noisier Reddit subreddits). Facebook less so.
But you’re a musician. :)
Yeah that is a great idea! I think I will do it. I'll install RescueTime for a week or so and then we will see what the scary results are o_o. I'll keep you updated :-)
Yikes! It takes mucho self discipline to manage social media. I can be consumed by it if I am not mindful and set goals for what is important for me to accomplish during the day. I tell myself a stern "NO" if I am tempted to re-check what I just checked 30 minutes ago. Redirect... good luck!
You have the internal strength to tell yourself a stern "NO"... I find myself re-checking my steemit page so quickly that I don't even know what happened! I gotta be more like you.
Way too much.. it’s starting to feel like a problem ..
Save yourself now while you still can
i got over my addiction and then steemit came along. When i am feelin it, I am totally obsessed. But then I go through weeks where I don't really want ot check it at all. Right now I'm obsessed and don't feel guilty about it at all :-)
You are smart to indulge without feeling guilty. I get a little guilty about it lol
Well I don't feel guilty cause I feel I'm able to make a difference, even if it's not a tangible one at times. I looked back on old posts and saw e amazing comments I was getting and realized how big that was. Be Awesome is pretty lively now, not every minute but for at least an hour a day. We have almost 10 people who check in almost every day which means the new people have someone to talk to when they arrive, also I'm finally starting to understand crypto through my use of steemit (I'll be utilizing your videos for help!) so what's there to feel bad about, I'm being so productive!
I’ve handled social media by binning off Twitter and Instagram. I can live with having Facebook in it but I don’t post much there either.
Yea it really would be good to cancel one or two of my other social media pages, just to simplify a bit. Maybe I should try that.