September 25, 2020 – Daily
After my super early morning yesterday, I was lagging this morning. I woke up pretty early, but I just wasn’t ready to get out of bed. Last week my daughter shared how she is trying to read a bit in the morning before she gets out of bed in the morning. Instead of catching up on social media – which is her typical morning routine, and mine! She has a ton of assigned readings for her college courses this semester and any small way to move forward during the day is helpful. I loved the idea! Not just because it is another way to get in more reading time – but because it is a more gentle way to start the day. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve started my day frustrated or angry after seeing something on social media.
There is NO reason that I have to start my day this way. I want to stay informed and current with what is happening in the world, but I don’t need to have a constant flow of this information – I can be angry later in the day 🙂
I have also been thinking about a social media a diet of sorts – but like dieting, it is not sustainable if the behavior is too extreme to maintain. I’m looking at making some behavior changes about social media over the course of the next few days and weeks. Here’s where I am going to start:
1) Get my phone OUT of my bed. I am going to properly plug it in and the night stand (so I can answer it if someone calls)
2) I am going to turn OFF all notifications except the following (allow my phone to ring is someone calls, and get notifications from text messages from close ONLY family members (this is less than 5 people) – otherwise I want my phone to sit there silently!
3) Get purposeful about my social media “catch-up” activities.
This is going to take a little prep work. I need to identify the purpose for this activity. I know that I use social media to stay up-to-date about current events, trends and changes in my field. I get inspiration from the posts and activities of others. AND I connect with people this way. Step one is to create a block of time to ONLY do one social media task and identify the platforms and social media accounts I want to review or browse. Using a scheduled block of time to give the activity boundaries so I don’t get lost or distracted.Taking from the post last week, I am going to START now — with curating a list of social media accounts to watch related to my coaching business and schedule a 20-minute block of time with a set of 3 categories to “watch” for; trends and events, meaningful content to read, need to connect or take action.
4) And the final thing I want to do is track how much time I spend on social media and where. I’ve installed an app called Freedom to help me ssshh my social media and there is also a great Chrome extension that shows where I spend my time during the day. I think it is helpful to know where I am spending my time.
Stay tuned to hear more about my Social Media Boundaries exercise over the next few days and weeks. I am off to be PRODUCTIVE!
