Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is about how to enjoy social media responsibly
Speaker 1: without losing hours down rabbit holes that you didn't mean
Speaker 1: to jump into. Every year, new surveys point out how
Speaker 1: much time people spend on social media and messaging platforms.
Speaker 1: One recent report claimed that among people who do use
Speaker 1: the Internet, the average was a hundred forty two minutes
Speaker 1: per day, or two hours and twenty two minutes. This
Speaker 1: is quite a bit of time, just for comparison's sake.
Speaker 1: If you use that time to read War and Peace instead,
Speaker 1: you'd be done in less than two weeks. And it's
Speaker 1: not a short book. Of course, this time isn't all wasted,
Speaker 1: some is sure, But the amount of time we spend
Speaker 1: on social media is complicated by the reality that these
Speaker 1: days many people do need to be plugged in as
Speaker 1: part of their jobs. Maybe they do digital marketing or communications,
Speaker 1: or they work for policy groups that need to be
Speaker 1: aware of the news cycle. Plus plenty of us want
Speaker 1: to know what people in our industries are talking about.
Speaker 1: These are absolutely legitimate uses of work time and preclude
Speaker 1: swearing off social media completely. The problem is that you
Speaker 1: might go on Twitter to check what a client's competitor
Speaker 1: is talking about, and then all of a sudden, you're
Speaker 1: watching cat videos. People who use social media professionally are
Speaker 1: no more immune to this than the rest of us.
Speaker 1: So I've been talking lately with people who do use
Speaker 1: social media professionally about how they manage their time. How
Speaker 1: do they focus on the necessary parts of social media
Speaker 1: while skipping the rest. What can the rest of us
Speaker 1: learn from them? The first tip recognize that social media,
Speaker 1: like email, can fill in cracks of time around other things.
Speaker 1: You can check headlines and Twitter or your competitors YouTube
Speaker 1: videos in chunks of ten minutes or less, but you
Speaker 1: probably won't write not ed or a press release, or
Speaker 1: give your direct report a thoughtful critique of her proposed
Speaker 1: strategy in ten minutes. So build your daily schedule around
Speaker 1: the big stuff. You might aim to work on big
Speaker 1: stuff for forty five minutes, and then you could spend
Speaker 1: a few minutes on social channels. Second, put some intention
Speaker 1: into those social media breaks. People who do this professionally
Speaker 1: take the time to curate lists of accounts that they
Speaker 1: find worth following. Yes, There's always the possibility of serendipitous gold,
Speaker 1: but you have to scroll through a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: to get there, and it might not be worth the time.
Speaker 1: In any case, if you follow a diverse group of
Speaker 1: thoughtful people in your industry or in your area of interests,
Speaker 1: you will see pretty much anything that's being discussed. The
Speaker 1: nature of social media is that you can rely somewhat
Speaker 1: on other people to do the searching for you. I'd
Speaker 1: add that unless you do have a really good professional reason,
Speaker 1: it's not worth following any accounts that tend to upset you.
Speaker 1: Thoughtful disagreements are fine, but drama and personal attacks aren't
Speaker 1: worth the mental space. Focus on quality. Third, and just
Speaker 1: as important, you also need to identify an end of
Speaker 1: the social media scrolling cycle. Many of us keep going
Speaker 1: until we realize that we've just kept going or something
Speaker 1: interrupts us. People who do this professionally might decide to
Speaker 1: look at a specific group of ten accounts during a check.
Speaker 1: At the end of that cycle, they move on. If
Speaker 1: you have a really difficult time setting an end like this, well,
Speaker 1: then set a timer. Well. I don't recommend snoozing in
Speaker 1: the morning when you're trying to get out of bed.
Speaker 1: Using a nine minute timer for social media breaks could
Speaker 1: be smart. Think of it as using the snooze function
Speaker 1: on your phone for good. Finally, the best way to
Speaker 1: keep social media in check is to be more proactive
Speaker 1: about your leisure time. Cal newport Its book Digital Minimalism
Speaker 1: has a longer discussion of this, if you'd like to
Speaker 1: check that out. It turns out that breaks at work
Speaker 1: are one thing, but the biggest social media binges tend
Speaker 1: to happen at other times, namely at night after the
Speaker 1: kids have gone to bed, or when you're hanging out
Speaker 1: around the house on the weekends when you don't have
Speaker 1: ideas about what else you'd like to do with yourself.
Speaker 1: Social media is a very easy option. You don't have
Speaker 1: to dress up, and you don't have to hire a babysitter.
Speaker 1: But there are plenty of more rewarding ways to spend
Speaker 1: this time. Consider various forms of low energy analog fun,
Speaker 1: like doing jigsaw puzzles or crossword puzzles, coloring and adult
Speaker 1: coloring books, or doing a craft such as cross stitching
Speaker 1: or knitting, or reading. I know that when I'm really
Speaker 1: into a good book, I spend a lot less time
Speaker 1: on Instagram when I don't have a good book, Well
Speaker 1: that's when I actually get that sad message that I'm
Speaker 1: all caught up, which is probably not a noteworthy achievement.
Speaker 1: What do you do to enjoy social media responsibly? Please
Speaker 1: let me know. You can email me at Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: podcast at i heeart media dot com. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
Speaker 1: the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,
Speaker 1: or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod that's B the number four,
Speaker 1: then Breakfast p o D. You can also shoot me
Speaker 1: an email at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media
Speaker 1: dot com. That Before Breakfast is spelled out with all
Speaker 1: the letters. Thanks so much. I look forward to staying
Speaker 1: in touch. Before Breakfast is a production of I Heart Radio.
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