6 Easy Ways To Stop Wasting Time On Social Media

We all know how time consuming social media can be especially when you hop on to respond to a notification and then all of a sudden an hour has gone by. It is one of the biggest distractions when it comes to getting tasks completed and achieving your goals.

The development of social media has been a huge benefit for many reasons, but like anything, there are some down sides to using it, one being that it is a huge distraction. Learning how to balance your use of social media can improve all areas of your life.

What If I Am A Content Creator?

If like me you have a blog and your job is to create content for social media, the risk of unnecessary scrolling can binder your productivity. Unfortunately, as a content creator, you have to be online most of the time; luckily, there are scheduling apps such as Hootsuite or buffer. These apps allow you to schedule social media posts on any day, at any time; this will keep your presence online while you are busy working on other things.

If you are looking for ways to stop wasting time on social media, you have come to the right place! There are small changes that you can make to ensure social media is not hindering your success. I have created 6 suggestions that will enable you to work without wasting time on social media.

1. Find Out How Much Time You Are Wasting On Social Media

In order to know how to tackle you wasting time on social media, you need to know how much time you are actually wasting! Smart phones have a built in tool that tells you how much screen time you use and which social media apps you have spent the most time on. If you are someone who needs statistics and numbers to make a change, using this feature on your phone can give you a great insight into your screen time and social media habits. This could shock you into change!

When I looked at my screen time and how much time I was on social media, I knew that I needed to make a conscious effort to change some of my social media habits.

2. Set Daily Goals

A hack that can help you to avoid wasting time on social media is to set daily goals or tasks. Setting specific daily goals will help you to focus and create a productive mindset. You should always keep your goals in mind when you create your task list. If any of your tasks require you to check social media, it is vital you set alarms to pay attention to the time you are spending on social media. Your goals will motivate you to stay on track.

Read more: How can you achieve your goals with the use of a goal planner

3. Schedule Time For Social Media

Instead of reaching for your phone for social media every time you receive a notification, you schedule time on your day allocated to do exactly that. You can schedule email, text and social media breaks between your work activities. This can help you to stay on track when you are working on tasks on your to-do list.

You can use your planner whether that is a paper or online one to schedule a specific phone/social media break. This practice allows you to stay focused on the task at hand because you will be aware of the break you have scheduled to read through your notifications.

When you are scheduling time for social media, it is important to stick to your allocated time, so you do not risk the endless scrolling. You can schedule these breaks throughout your day. The rest of the time, you should ignore your notifications unless you are waiting on an urgent message.

Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash

4. Set Alarms Or Timers

Setting an alarm or a timer when you are on social media, can help you stay aware of the time. When you know that the clock is ticking, it leads you to avoid activities that suck away all of your time… like being on social media!

When you have scheduled all your breaks throughout the day, setting an alarm or timer for the time you have allocated e.g. 15 minutes, can stop you from being sucked in to wasting more time. When the alarm goes off, stop and return to your work tasks. Using alarms and timers can be a great strategy especially if you are prone to procrastinating on social media as you will be aware of how much time you are spending on your phone and social media.

5. Turn Off Your Notifications

One thing that can pull you on to social media can be receiving notifications. When you hear that noise and your phone light up you can’t help but wonder what is says and then serious FOMO feelings pull you in. I can be guilty of this a lot! It leads to procrastination and a lot of wasted hours.

When you are working, it is best to be proactive and switch those notifications off. It means you will not be interrupted when you are working through your task list and the urge will be a lot less to pick up your phone and scroll.

Getting a notification, but waiting a while to look at it will also stop the need for an instant response, whether it’s from an email or a social media post. Then, you have our scheduled time to be present in your responses and email replies.

6. Time-Blocking Strategy

As a blogger or content creator, you have to take a lot of time promoting your content on different social media platforms as well as engaging with your audience. It can be really easy to get sucked into that funny video and before you know it, 20 minutes have passed. You need to plan your time on social media effectively.

Time-blocking is used to devote a specified period of time to a task or group of tasks. This time management hack ensure that you accomplish more by moving through one or more tasks on your list without interruptions.

In addition, time-blocking prevents you from losing tie as your brain adjusts to the switch from one project to another. As an example, you may be working on writing a new blog post. To make this method work for you, you should complete all the blog posts that you need to write. This will aid your brain into working faster. Furthermore, it will save you time and means you avoid the breaks between tasks where you may be prone to check your social media.

These are 6 tips that will help you stop wasting time, so that you can achieve more in the time you have. Even making one or two of these changes can boost your productivity.

What is one way that you try to avoid wasting time on social media? I’d love to hear in the comments.