5 Ways to Use Social Media Without It Using You

Summer's in the air and so is your newsletter for the week. Welcome back to the 16,217 of you opening up today's Personal Brand Brief. Today's topic is a timely one. If it sparks a chord or teaches you something new, I'd love to hear from you in the comments. Have a great week!

This week’s set up

?? Problem: You’re glued to social media & addicted to the endless news feed of info

?? Solution: Find freedom in setting up healthy relationship & using social for good

?? Next play: Start with your mindset then tackle small modifications to your habits

Intro

Have you ever been at a family hangout and instead of interacting you’ve been on your phone? Or at your kid's sports game, and instead of watching you were scrolling? ??

I'm sure we've all been here. The bigger question I think we need to ask:

Is our scrolling a reoccurring habit?

If I'm honest, this conversation in my home has been a difficult one to have with my wife.

As both of us work-from-home, it can be challenging for us to find the perfect balance of dedicated time focused on work, leisure, exercise, personal social media use and of course quality time together all in the same day. It's a lot to juggle.

These world class engineers have developed social media to be quite addictive and sadly much of our needed leisure time slides into the social media category, when I think we all wish it'd be the other way around.

So, a solution?

As much as I see the difficulty in social media overload, I also strongly believe social media can be a force for good (so much so that I’ve written about this before).

I see many benefits to social media and the ways that it opens doors for relationships, ideas, and opportunities. I think the big paradigm shift is helping people discover how it should be making our lives better, not worse.

And it all starts with building a healthy relationship with social media, to keep yourself in check. So, after hearing some readers request some techniques to avoid growing unhealthy on social, I've put together a list of my top five to share with all of you.

These five steps help me stay focused, disciplined and engaged when I open up my iPhone:

1. See it as a tool, use it as a tool

It all starts with your mindset. You’re the user. Social media doesn’t use you. With that in mind, focus and position your habits to see social media as a tool, or an asset, in your life. ??

You don’t adjust your life around your blender. Or your toothbrush. Or your fancy new car. Instead, you work those into your day, using them when you need them.

A nice hack I like for this tip is giving your iPhone it's own home to live so it doesn't always need to be in your pocket. Every great tool has its own tool box. So find a nice spot you can put your device down when you're at home or with a friend.

2. Take days off and time-zone your usage

This is a big one. Try to take a full day off social media each week, and set time-boundaries around your usage. ?

For example, have your phone restrict certain apps after a certain time at night. Or set a time limit on your daily social media usage.

I personally take Sunday off from 6am-6pm to unplug from social media and emails. I use it to go outdoors for hikes, read books I've been wanting to or even start projects around the house that I "haven't had time for"...

3. Build friendships that don’t equate to online status

Be genuine. Be friendly. Explore topics you don't know. Have conversations you're not well versed in.

Seek out friendships you want to get to grow because of someone's character and personality, vs their social status.

Social media was meant to be social. It’s there for interaction and building meaningful relationships. ??

4. Journal or page write your thoughts vs going to an online platform 

If you’re using social media to fill all your downtime, or you’re going to it for entertainment, it’s a good idea to be intentional about creating non-tech rhythms. 

Consider reflecting on your day in a journal instead of scrolling in bed. ?

Or why not start the day writing down some goals, ideas or things you're thankful for?

5. Create for the sake of creating, not for views or likes 

This goes without saying. If you don’t love what you do, you’re not going to be consistent. (And consistency is what grows an engaged following in the end.)

Create because you love it. If you don’t, try something else. ??

Understand that the joy of creating content is in the learning journey of communicating your thoughts, and not the views or likes you get in exchange.

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I hope these five tips were helpful. But I also know there's many more ideas and habits to consider. If you have something I missed, I'd love your apporach.

When the right opportunity strikes, dig into social media as a tool and use it to make your life better. But don’t let it consume you.

ACTION BYTES ??

If this is an area of your life you’d like to work on, here are some questions to help guide you:

?? What aspects of social media help you live a better life? Why?

?? What aspects of social media make your life worse? How can you limit these things?

?? What time of day do you most often let social media “use you”? What can you do during this time instead?

Some Resources:

• A great book on creating space around social is Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. It’s about doing the actions and behaviours that have the biggest ROI, and understanding that tech platforms are designed to keep us addicted to updates and notifications. 
• Another book, 24/6: The Power of Unplugging One Day a Week by Tiffany Shlain explains the importance of taking a digital sabbath to unplug. 
• Of course, there’s also the Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, which features different digital giants sharing their concerns about our current system.

Riff of the Day

As the newsletter continues to grow, I'm starting to explore some sponsorship ideas that would align our readers. If you have a brand or product that you think is worth highlighting in the future, please email me at: [email protected].

It goes right to me, the author, and I'd be happy to hear from you.

Thanks for sticking with me until the end. If you have any ideas that sparked or questions about social media balance, drop me a note here! 

Stay outta’ trouble and catch you next week.

??? Joel

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