For the last month I have been taking a break from social media. Not to sound dramatic or anything but… it’s been life changing. Let me tell you how, but before I do, humour me as I share where I was.
Years ago I launched a podcast, and to promote it and my business I discovered social media as potential for growing an audience. At its peak I’d amassed a following of 30,000 in the web agency niche. I had a paid membership, plus a community group of over 4000.
Sounds great, and whilst yes, it helped me make sales, build my brand and even launch in-person events, it was also slowly damaging my health!
I was exhausted, chronically online checking feeds, answering questions or coming up with what to post next in order to keep up engagement for the sake of the algorithms!! ☹️
This translated to hours on my smartphone and often unfocused work time as I stopped to scroll the feeds. What was I missing? What should I say? What are these notifications?
When I finally decided to close down my podcast socials and groups, and slow the release cycle of episodes, I thought my time online would reduce. Initially it did.
I soon, however, found myself going back. Seeing what others in the industry were doing and feeling low that I was slowly leaving it all behind. Over time, however, as I made my peace, habit and muscle memory took over and rather than engaging, I became a chronic doom scroller.
Hours wasted watching Instagram reels, reading silly arguments on X or Facebook, or rolling my eyes at the latest trend on TikTok whilst secretly loving the music and going down that rabbit hole too.
I was now a consumer of short form content, and the worst of humanity (bit harsh), in the comments. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out the impact.
- 8+ hours phone usage daily
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Crippling comparison
- Goals forgotten
- Targets missed
- And worst: Family life and relationships negatively affected.
Over the last year I’ve made progress, reducing my time online, and avoiding posting as much. However I’d still find my mind was lingering over things I had seen or read. If I posted, that feeling of disappointment was also there if folks didn’t engage. Essentially reducing my time on socials, whilst a step in the right direction, was still not the answer. I guess it’s like smoking less. 60 a day is terrible for you, but 10 a day is still going to have negative effects.
So a month ago I decided to put notices up on Instagram + Facebook that I was taking an extended break. I closed any other irrelevant socials and have gone cold turkey! No reading posts, no doom scrolling. No posting. No promotion… and my word… It’s been Wonderful!!!
I have achieved so much. I have developed new habits and I have learned that boredom is THE most powerful creativity booster you can imagine. I’ve spent years distracting myself online, avoiding boredom and hoping to find answers and inspiration elsewhere.
Turns out everything I needed was buried within me and I just needed to turn off the noise.
Over the last month I’ve achieved so much including:
- Read 4 books cover to cover! More than I read last year
- Written 14 blogs by hand or on the typewriter
- Explored my hobbies and included my son in some of them like retro gaming
- Reduced phone time to under an hour a day
- Been super productive in work time completing a prototype from scratch
- Developed a plan for the Offline Reboot Channel
- Had several dates with my wife
- Spent more time with my boy
- Walked 10k steps a day
- And loads more including personal goals I want to keep to me and celebrate myself 😊
It’s only been a month, what will a year look like? Hang around to find out. Maybe even try it for yourself! I will be sharing how I continue to promote my business offline as I recognise this is the blocker for most people.
My theory is we managed before social media, so for the rest of this now one year experiment, I’m going to find out!! This is another step in my Offline Reboot..:)
No AI was used to write this post. Just me, and my messy handwriting! 🙂
Featured image by Jonas Leupe on Unsplash