Streamlining Your Digital Life - Facebook

I know for one, that I spend too much time online, on the phone, on social media, etc.  So I set out to decide how I was going to streamline my digital life with regards to these things.  Here are the thoughts I have had and plan to implement.  I hope they will help you to create an Action Plan for streamlining your digital life.  This first post, will deal with Facebook.

Periodically go through your Facebook account and do the following:

1.  Delete people you friended but don't really know.  It might have been for a limited project that you worked on together or to get an urgent message to someone whom you didn't have an email address for.  If that purpose has been served and you no longer interact with this person, why have their notifications and wall posts clogging up your news feed?

2.  Unlike pages that you thought seemed interesting at the time because someone else posted them, but really aren't.  Perhaps you saw a neat giveaway and had to like a page to enter for their drawing.  Maybe you saw a product that sounded neat and you thought you would like to try.  Ask yourself if you will ever buy from this company or if you would have liked the page had there not been a giveaway.  If the answer to either question is no, you probably don't need this. 

3.  Decide if you really need to put your interests out there on Facebook.  In case you haven't noticed, the ads in the sidebars are based off of your interests and comments you make.  If you are talking about politics, you will get political ads.  If you are talking about paleo foods, you will get food ads. If you are talking about running, you will get specific athletic ads.  This will clutter up your feed with Suggested Pages and Trending Articles.  The fewer you have listed, the fewer you will be bombarded with.  

4.  Determine if you really want to stay in any facebook groups you are members of.  Have these groups served their purpose and you don't need them any longer.  It might be time to rethink them.  I know that I have started several for various purposes.  Some are still active and some are not.  Some have flurries of activity from time to time.  You need to decide if they are still worth your time.

5.  Remove yourself from groups that others added you to and you now find that you don't participate in.  If you find, you don't read them or participate on these, then by all means, get rid of them.

6.  Determine if the groups you want to stay in, really serve the purpose you wanted them to serve.  Some might be nice to be in, but do they enhance your life or take your precious time.

If you have any other ideas, please post in the comments section.

What Happens When You Cut Back on Social Media - You Get Things Done!!!

I know I spend a lot of time on social media.  Finally being home for many days in a row and working on cleaning and decluttering the house for Confirmation last weekend, I was forced to get off social media and do more things that were on my to do list.  The house got mostly cleaned (except for a couple non-public areas), more real meals were made (with the help of my daughters and MIL and even today (our crockpot and stockpot)).

Having moved forward this week, we are trying to finish up school for the year, get the filing under control and decluttering some more before we have another weekend activity.  For my birthday I got a new label maker (handheld) because my old one only printed half of the words and I have been using it to label files and set up a filing system for all my homeschooling information and ideas.  About 1:30 today,  I ran it completely out of label tape.  Hoping I can find some at Shopko this afternoon so I can keep going with this project.

Next up is the office purging and filing.  Better get two label refills for that one.  Once the office is doing better,  Also making a list of curriculum to purchase for next year at the homeschool conference that is next weekend.  Always feels good when I have purchases our curriculum and can start planning out our next year.  Hard to believe but I have one graduating in 2 years and all three kids will graduate within 4 years.

Sadly, I have not posted on my blog for over 13 months!  Vowing to change that and hopefully spend a  little less time on Facebook.  I have always dreamt of writing and while I still want to write a book (I have ideas and notes started for two of them), I think blogging is a great foray into that realm to see if I really have as much to say as I think I do.

Hoping to set up a blog calendar of topics so I am reminded to blog more regularly.  Look for more pictures, more recipes (LOVE Pinterest ) and maybe even more political commentary (you can skip if you don't want to read it).