Over the last few months, I’ve mentioned here once or twice that I’ve been feeling crazy busy lately. Between our Yosemite trip, New York trip, training for my half marathon, fundraising for LLS, working two jobs, and social obligations almost every weekend, I haven’t had much time for me. Instead, I’ve been feeling like a bit of a stress case who can’t even find a minute to effing BREATHE.
Novemember is almost here, and for me, that means a lot more free time ahead, and I can’t wait! No trips to plan, no training, no fundraising, and only a handful of social obligations to fulfill. However, I’ve been thinking a lot lately how I want to create even more free time in my life. More free time to blog, to blog consistently, and to blog well. More free time to work on my running and start attending yoga classes again. More free time to read (and finish!) all the books that I’ve downloaded on my Kindle this year. Blogging, running, yoga, and reading are my hobbies– they are activities that I love to do in my free time. And because they are my hobbies and I love them so, I want to make more of an effort to fit them into my life. This means something else in my life has got to go.
After realizing that I need to eliminate one or two things from my life in order to make time for my hobbies again, I started thinking about what I do when I’m not working, and I immediately came up with this: waste time on social media, specifically Facebook. This is how my days looked like until recently:
Wake up, check Facebook.
Get ready for work, check Facebook.
Go through the Starbucks drive-thru, check Facebook.
Log onto my work computer, check Facebook.
Work, check Facebook.
Get home from work, check Facebook.
Go to my second job, check Facebook on my break.
Get home from second job, check Facebook.
Get ready for bed, check Facebook.
Lay in bed, check Facebook.
Fall asleep. Wake up in the morning and do it all over again.
Kinda disgusting how much time I’d spend on Facebook, isn’t it? I was probably spending on average about two hours a day on Facebook, equaling 14 hours a week. Think of all the other things I could be doing with those 14 hours! It’s not even that I care that much about what my so-called “friends” are posting (more on that later), it’s just habit. A very, very bad habit that takes up a lot of my time. A habit that I should work on breaking.
Not only do I want to quit Facebook because it is such a huge time-suck, I want to quit it because it adds no enrichment to my life whatsoever. In fact, most of the time when I check Facebook, I get annoyed/angry at what people are posting: political rants, sports fans shit-talking other sports fans, “What kind of _____ are you?” quizzes, Candy Crush invites, etc. I see so much of this crap in my Facebook feed, it’s literally starting to look like clutter. And don’t even get me started on some of the stuff my FB friends post that make me feel shitty about my own life, causing me to start playing the comparison game. Essentially, if I don’t enjoy reading over half of the stuff posted in my feed, why should I spend two hours a day on Facebook?
So how am I quitting Facebook? I started by deleting the app from my phone and my iPad a couple days ago. This means I can only check Facebook if I’m at a desktop computer, which is either at my office job or at home in our office. This may not sound like a lot, but it really is! Yesterday, I didn’t check Facebook between 2pm when I left my office job to 8pm when I got home from my restaurant job. Six hours is a long time for a Facebook junkie to not check Facebook. And you know what? I don’t even miss it. Not once in the last couple days have I thought, “Am I missing anything interesting by not checking Facebook right now?” because I already know there’s not a whole lot of interesting stuff going on there. Just a bunch of political rants and Candy Crush invites.
You might be wondering if I plan on deleting my account altogether. The answer to that question is: for now, no. I actually need a Facebook account for my non-profit office job because I manage our campaign’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram profiles, so I kinda have to keep my account for the time being. You also might be wondering if I plan to delete any of my other social media accounts, and the answer to that is also not for now. I have Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest accounts, but I don’t spend a lot of time on any of those platforms. I do have an Instagram account that I use often (not nearly as often as FB), but I actually really enjoy Instagram; it’s made for a younger demographic which means my dad, relatives, and in-laws aren’t on it, and you can choose who you follow. I also like that Instagram is simpler and there’s way less clutter: you can’t “share” or “retweet,” and your feed doesn’t constantly tell you what other people “like” the way Facebook does.
I’m super excited about this change I’m making because I think it’ll be really healthy for me. I’m hoping that deleting the Facebook app will quickly help break my habit of checking it so much, and eventually I won’t feel the need to check my Facebook at my desktop computers, either. Less Facebook equals less negativity in my life and more time to be productive and do the things that make me happy.
If you’re on Facebook, how much time do you spend on it a day? Have you ever thought about deleting your account? How do you make time for your hobbies?
