How to Get your Butt off Facebook and Stop Wasting Time January 12, 2009

Alright I basically wrote this for myself cos I let Facebook eat up way too much of my waking hours that could be spent in some other way. And judging from what i see of my friends, they do too. So I write this for all of us, sharing advice that hopefully I will make myself follow one of these days!

….New Years Resolutions anyone?

From what I can see it’s a cycle, I feel I have to check it at least once a day to stay in the circle of gossip but then realise that most of the ‘friends’ I am reading up about are people I met years ago who I’m not actually all that interested whose contact should have been naturally died ages ago.

That’s not to say I dont love facebook but it’s just so time consuming and doesn’t really bring much in return, only shreds of lukewarm gossip.

And so I’m thinking less time on the darstardly thing will be a good idea

So, here are some strategies:

Limits!

Set yourself a limit to how much time you ARE going to waste on the thing cos cold turkey is so hard.

So set a timer i.e. ten minutes and stick to it

And limit yourself to checking it once a day or whatever, this helps wean your dependance from it

Focus!

When you go on the computer, or on facebook I find that I am most productive and less time-wasting if I have a clear idea of what I’m doing.

So, if need be write down exactly the tasks you hope to achieve e.g. “send comment to Elisa”, “send gift to Hugh for birthday”, “check mail” or at least have a clear idea in your head what you want to do and STICK WITH IT and DONT GET DISTRACTED and GET OUT OF THERE as soon as it’s all done

Do something Else!

There are countless other things to do. turn the computer off. Go outside for a walk. Call up a friend. Read a book (go Terry Pratchett!!) Get ideas.

As one of my favourite posts of all time from Alex the girl says,

“Please go out there and do. Live. Don’t be the same as yesterday. Don’t live vicariously online. Don’t use language that has no meaning or talk ideas you don’t really live. Don’t hide. Don’t copy others or live their ideas or life. Don’t fear doing your thing. Don’t fear doing. Instead of reading a decorating magazine, paint that room. Instead of thinking of baking, do up a cake. Run, walk, bike. Put that self help book down and pick up yourself.” (read the whole thing at alexthegirl.com it’s excellent!)

So I go now, and I’m going to try not to be a hypocrite and so I’ll follow my advice and go and DO something!

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