Scheduling your social media use will save you time, energy and attention

Over the last two weeks, I have introduced two approaches for moving away from an “any-benefit mindset” and toward a “net-benefit mindset” when dealing with social media.

The first was about applying the Pareto principle to our social media tools. It lets us determine which tools have a substantially positive impact, substantially negative impact, or little impact on our ability to accomplish our most important professional and personal goals.

While we should obviously avoid the social media tools with a substantially negative impact on these goals, I suggested applying a second approach for the tools with only little impact: the “social media fast”. A couple of years ago, I used that approach and quit Instagram a week later.

For the social media tools that have a substantially positive impact on our goals, there is a third approach. It allows us to get the benefits from a particular tool at a very low cost to our time, energy and attention. I call that approach “social media scheduling” – and LinkedIn is one of the tools that I apply it to.

LinkedIn has a substantially positive impact on my professional and personal goals. In the professional realm, I use it to promote some of my work, including this newsletter. In the personal space, LinkedIn allows me to connect and reconnect with friends and acquaintances, and stay up-to-date about what they’ve been up to lately.

While LinkedIn is a net-benefit tool for me, being on it 24/7 is not a good idea. Like Instagram, it’s highly distracting and quite addictive. That’s why before using “social media scheduling”, I checked it much more often than I would like – during both work and leisure time.

Like the first two approaches, “social media scheduling” is inspired by Cal Newport. In his book Digital Minimalism, he recommends having specific periods for what he calls “low-quality leisure”, which includes social media: „When you get to these periods, anything goes […]. But outside these periods, stay offline.“

Here are three things that help me pull this off. First, I use a Chrome Plugin called SiteBlock to stay away from LinkedIn for most of the day. Second, I put LinkedIn into my schedule – similar to email, group chat and other collaborative work. And third, sticking to that schedule becomes much easier when not using social media on the smartphone.

Confining the use of social media to predefined periods of our day not only prevents time confetti, but also frees up time for pursuing leisure activities that are more conducive to your productivity and well-being. That’s the topic I will cover during the following weeks.

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Until next week,
Christian