Decide How to Use Your Time, Do NOT be Told by Social Media

It’s 5:30pm, and you just cracked a beer and sat down on your couch for some well-deserved time to relax after a long day. You tell yourself you’ll scroll for 10 minutes, then finally do all the shit you’ve been putting off. 10 minutes pass, and you get up ready to go, you look at the clock and it’s 10pm. Wait, what?! Yeah, that’s how the socials work, the classic infinite scroll. There is always more content to suck up and we do it constantly, just swiping that thumb up repeatedly.?

What is the “infinite scroll” you ask? Long explanation short, it’s a way for apps to steal your attention, and therefore, your time. That app sitting on your phone is like a black hole, and once you open it, you’ve come in contact with the event horizon, and your time is just going to be spaghettified into the abyss, never to be found again. It is a “web-design technique that loads content continuously as the user scrolls down the page, eliminating the need for pagination” (nngroup.com/articles/infinite-scrolling). But what does that mean? It means there aren’t any web pages you have to click. Like I said in the last paragraph, you just keep swiping that thumb and new content arrives. You all know this, look at Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, they just keep pushing content each time you swipe up.?

How much time do your socials suck out of your day? According to Oberlo, you’re looking at 2-3.5 hours a day. Of course, that depends on you. For the rest of this article, we’ll say that we’re all the best versions of ourselves and we only stay on our socials for two hours (here’s where you can be honest with yourself, you don’t have to tell anyone how long you’re scrolling, it’s okay). Let’s just take a time to think about that for a moment, you’re spending two hours a day just watching other people’s shit. Sure, maybe 5/10 minutes of that are your friends’ posts you may actually be interested in, but the most part are those random cooking videos or some crazy new shit where people are walking on milk crates for no apparent reason.

So we’ve already established we’re spending a lot of time looking at other people’s crap they’re posting, right? How is that helping them out? Well, you’re making them rich, like stupid rich. One guy who, I’ll admit, cracks me up is “Bentellect” from what I know he’s on YouTube and TikTok. From us watching this guy’s channel, he is worth $5 million, or $30-50, from other sources. Taking the lowest amount, he’s making a ton of money because you’re taking 30 seconds to watch his videos. What about Khaby Lame? You know, the guy who looks at people’s stupidity and does whatever the obvious way and sticks his hands out? He lost his job last year and started posting videos. In one year he’s raked in $1-$2 million. (These are the figures that pop up from a quick Google search).

Why don’t we just take HALF that time we spend scrolling, so ONE HOUR, and make our own content? I’d be willing to bet both Khaby Lame and Bentellect tried a few things before their current form caught on. I mean even I did it for a while (don’t worry it’s coming back), and do I have a lot of “followers”? No. Do I make any money off it? No, I don’t. Does that possibility exist if you learn what the audience wants and are consistent? Yes, it’s there. All you need is that one post gets shared and that could be your Saturn V rocket to the moon of digital fame and literal wealth. I’m sure there’s something you can do and throw it onto the internet. What do I do? Well, you’re reading it! Maybe you’re even checking out Good Initiative, Bad Judgement (@GoodIBadJ) on Instagram! (Shameless plug, I know). Personally, I do it because I enjoy helping people out. If I ever get a ticket on that Saturn V, will I ride it? Oh, hell yes I will.

I can hear it now, “but I don’t know what to do!” Yeah, you’re probably right. Do you want to know how to fix that and be more creative? STOP SCROLLING! Just a quick Google search of “how scrolling kills your productivity” and you get an article from Medium, Fast Company, and High Existence, right off the bat. The gist of it is that your mind just takes in everything and gets its entertainment, so it basically shuts off. Whereas if you’re not taking in everyone else’s content, your creativity will flourish. Think for a second, where do you get your best ideas? I would bet it’s when you’re mowing the lawn or taking a shower. But why is that? Because you’re not sucking down someone else’s work. Your mind is free to think. I posted a video a while back about how just taking a walk can boost creativity. It’s the same concept as the shower, your body is doing something it knows how to do, so we do not use any real brain power in completing the task. This leaves your brain free to just think shit up. So what am I trying to get across with this paragraph? If you stop scrolling and take a walk, you may figure out what that idea is that you want to run with and start posting!

If you’ve been following Good Initiative, Bad Judgement for a while, you know I fell off for quite some time. Part of that was definitely I upped my intake of social media, which was stealing my creativity. It was like the socials were emptying my cup of motivation and happiness. Like Jeramiah Solven of Conquer Academy says, “you can’t pour from an empty cup”. So I had to put some measures in place to take care of myself. I’ve found many applications that address this issue. The one I’m currently using is “Social Fever” and basically all you do is pick the apps you want to limit and set a time limit for them, which forces you to stop using them. Listening to the Michael Hyatt on a podcast, he had his wife create a password for the “give me more time” button on the app, so he can’t go around the time limits he has set for himself. I know of other people that delete all the apps on their phone and only go to them through the browser. That is a little extreme to me, mostly because I cannot stand the browser interface for any of the apps, they’re made to be an app on a phone, not seen through a phone’s web browser. It’s my preference but the websites just look clunky and I can’t stand them.

Since I’ve enacted this process, I’ve done quite a bit in the “creative” game. I’ve published an Instagram post each day, and I’ve even put a couple IG Reels up. Sure, taking in other’s content is entertaining, sometimes you can become motivated or even learn something. But, you hit a point of diminishing returns where the motivation and learning stop, and the only thing left is the entertainment piece. And THAT is where it starts to get ugly.

What are the action steps? What can you do right now to get out of the whirlpool that is your social media? Head to the app store and download Social Fever and set a time limit for your social media. Start with an hour and keep that for a few days. At the end of the days check in with the app and see how much time you’re using each one, then round down and set a limit. For example, if you’re on Facebook for 47 minutes, make it 45, or even 40. Just a little to start. Then start ticking off minutes. Obviously, this will depend on what you do on the apps. In my app, I have more time set for Instagram so I can look at the post insights and see what’s working and what isn’t. For TikTok, it’s set to 20 minutes right now, enough to get a laugh or two but nothing else. Facebook right now I have set to a half hour because I’m trying to learn some tips on how to use my Full Focus Planner. What’s important here is as things change, you change your settings. So, once I’ve got the workflow I need to mash together my analog planner, and my digital calendar and to do list, I’ll knock that time back to 20 minutes or so.

Now, get out there, go crush it, and, under all circumstances, use your best judgement.