Social Media is a powerful tool.

If you own a business, social media the best way to spread your ideas.

Unfortunately, if you’re on the receiving end, social media might not be helping you as much as you think.

If you already have a plan for your life, many of the benefits that you get from social media come at a cost.

Every good idea that you pick up from this river of endless information…

  • adds items to your tasks.
  • distracts you from your current work.
  • sometimes discourages you from doing something you should do.
  • drains you and leaves you unable to execute today’s responsibilities.

Just as video games are great training tools, spending too much time on social media is harmful.

Unfortunately, different people have different opinions on how much time you need to spend on social media.

And discussing that often turns into another draining argument as well.

Often, the distraction is more harmful than NOT getting these fresh ideas.

I found myself arguing with vegans on social media.

I’m madly typing at my keyboard to argue about minimalism, the environment, healthy diets, religion, politics and a whole bunch of other important but personal topics.

I have wasted so much time.

I’ve turned off notifications on my phone for most apps, except for my Calendar, Client Communication, Calls and Text Messages.

But I still check all my feeds and have spent a MINIMUM of three hours a day.

I spend most of July 20, 2019 just rotating between, Facebook, a couple of blogs that I read, Instagram and YouTube.

In the past, I deleted my Facebook account.

And reopened a year later because I needed it for work tasks.

I’ve grown an audience to approximately twenty thousand people.

I’ve connected with clients and people who have helped promote me.

And those are all great benefits.

Unfortunately, social media is slowly taking up my time.

And left unchecked have the potential to take over my life.

Limiting my ability to take action on my current responsibilities.

In the past, I struggled to:

  • Keep my room clean.
  • Keep my office clean.
  • Keep my computer clean.
  • Keep my phone clean.
  • Meditate.
  • Go to the gym everyday.
  • Buy groceries and cook my own food.
  • Write for my website.
  • Work on client projects.
  • Work on my personal projects.
  • Draw to reduce stress.
  • Go to church.
  • Read books that contain knowledge.
  • Learn new skills.
  • Ride my bike.
  • and many more…

But I have religiously checked my Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and other messengers daily.

Before Apple rolled out the App Usage Tracker, I already knew how much time I spent reading other people’s posts, watching stories and looking at cute photos of anime and whatever is on my news feed.

That’s why I deleted my Facebook account the first time.

One benefit of Facebook is that you can reach people.

At the cost of the Facebook Corporation’s staff and AI gaining the ability to read all your conversations and use that information to target you and your loved ones with very specific advertisement.

But you can reach everyone.

You no longer need to save phone numbers and email addresses because of Facebook.

So somehow that is something that we all consider to be an acceptable trade off.

Here are my new Facebook rules

FIRST: My Websites Are My Social Media

My thoughts and opinions go to my websites.

Announcements go to my homepage

Career notes and advice gets documented on my job hunting tips website.

Personal development notes go to my personal blog.

Records of my adventures and recommendations go to my directory website.

Workflow goes to my freelancer website..

I’ll only use Facebook to message people.

I’ll stop participating in the following features.

  • Stories (just because I could see what everyone else is sharing means that I should check out what everyone else is doing)
  • News Feed (because I can keep scrolling indefinitely and read this forever)
  • Groups (because I’ll lose my discipline type and stay glued all day in the comments section)

I don’t recommend this for anyone else.

This is for Kevin Olega.

As a form of voluntarily facing my weakness.


Thank you for reading.

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