Social media is the ultimate catch 22 for me. On one hand, it has been a catalyst for my career as an entrepreneur. I've built communities of 56,000+ members on Facebook, driven millions of views across YouTube and TikTok and made countless, invaluable connections along the way.
On the other hand, it is one of the most destructive things I consistently do to myself. I have a tremendously difficult time avoiding the siren's call of meaningless threads. Threads that are generally little more than people shouting their opinions at one another with neither side leaving any better off for it.
So, I did two things.
I started with X (Twitter). I did a deep cleaning of my feed and who I follow. I documented the process of turning my Twitter feed into a genuinely productive and peaceful environment here if you're interested.
Next, I deleted all social media apps except YouTube. YouTube was worth keeping. I rarely comment there and the educational videos I watch are certainly worth any mild distractions.
Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are all gone. I'll use them exclusively on desktop now when needed.
I've also started to move my communities from Facebook over to Skool, which is a distraction free environment, totally devoid of culture wars and politics.
Finally, I installed a free Chrome extension called Undistracted.
It helps me keep my lesser self in check. I can block all of the most distracting things on my feeds across Facebook (the biggest issue for me), YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn (I don't use it), Reddit and even Netflix.
Here are the settings I'm using now for Facebook.
My notifications feed will show if people commented or replied on something, but the beautiful thing is, I CAN'T SEE IT!
For instance, someone replied to my comment on this post and I don't even have the option of seeing it.
Instead of getting into an absolutely worthless fight arguing about the effectiveness of one of my favorite baseball players, I get the peace of willful ignorance to any replies.
I've always felt that the saying, "Ignorance is bliss" was a bit of a cop out. Ignorance is bliss, yes, but ignorance at scale is dangerous.
Selective ignorance, on the other hand, is just the smart thing to do.
But what if you need to see something like a group member's question?
The cool part is that I can toggle the extension on and off if I want but also, I can still see things from within the groups I admin.
I can see posts, comments etc. even when my blocks are set.
Unless you have unnatural, spartan strength willpower, you should go install Undistracted immediately.
I am not affiliated with them in any way. I've merely been compensated in the form of a new found freedom and hours of time back that I can use to grow my business, pursue things that are meaningful and spend time with my family.