Diary of a Social Media Hiatus: How I Did It & What I Learned

In my last post, I shared why I’ve taken a social media hiatus in August 2012 {short story: big business shifts ahead} and what I planned for my hiatus to look like {no Twitter or Facebook, limited email}.

I decided to keep a periodic diary of my hiatus so I could track how it went, and share my insights with you.

I’m currently on Day 19 of this planned 21-day hiatus. All in all, I’m emerging calmer in my nervous system, more centered around what it is I do and want to create in this next phase of my business, absolutely delighted to have discovered what actually works for me in terms of social media interaction vs. activity, and — missing you and this conversation.

Here’s a rundown of my escapades in social media hiatusland.

DAY ZERO

Tonight, before bed, I delete the Twitter and Facebook apps off my iPhone. I feel as if I’ve just deleted the bank accounts that hold all my money. Interesting.

DAY ONE

In my home studio, on my desktop PC: I take one more quick look at my Facebook business page and the private copywriting group I co-facilitate {sorry, writers, we’re all full for now} before logging out. I log out of Twitter, too, without even reading all of this morning’s @ replies. Wow. Unhooking from these platforms feels to me like wading out into a deep lake without a life preserver.

I keep grabbing my iPhone and automatically scrolling to the second home screen where my social media icons usually live. They’re not there, as I deleted them last night. I realize this with a sudden dull pang, each time, like I’ve swallowed a gust of wind and it lands in my stomach. Whomp.

Already today I am noticing how much more quickly I get shit done. I’m producing. I’m tearing through my Inbox, one email response to the next. {Nothing gratuitous or outside-of-business: these are emails I actually need to write and respond to.} I push out client deliverables easily, like making specialty sandwiches I’m really skilled at making. {Not quite.}

I feel more peaceful in my stomach, and inside my brain.

DAY TWO

My brain synapses feel {if they can indeed be felt} healthier and less frayed already. I am having thoughts — complete thoughts! — about my work that glide whole, in succession, into place, one after the other.

Between finishing one client deliverable and starting the next, I find myself thinking, “Oh, I’ll just check Fa – -,” “Oh, lemme check Tw – – .” And then I remember that I’m not doing that anymore. Not right now. And I get back to work.

Kind of amazing. But I did find a reason to InstaGram something yesterday.

DAY THREE

The ideas for this next iteration of my business, they have begun to zoom. I keep Google Docs and Basecamp open as tabs as I work on a client project, and it seems every 5 minutes I’m clicking over to add a new idea into one of them.

So this hiatus? Really doing my mind and emotions a world of good, and it’s only Day Three. It’s interesting, how insidious I’m seeing the *pull* of social media is for me. Granted, I haven’t had much time to work on my stuff because I’ve been doing client work, but my focus is so much there and I’m accomplishing everything faster.

I’m seeing that my way of using social media really was slowing me down, like adware or spyware running in the back {or front} of my mind at all times. Like a pop-up ad I could never make go away.

DAY THIRTEEN

My social media hiatus is going really well. My brain feels healed, actually. The constant pinging and bouncing back and forth from one interface to the next is gone.

Have decided I’m going to permanently revise the way I use social media, as I can clearly see now what’s distracting and useless and just activity, rather than adding value.

For instance, this is what’s true for me:

Adding value: Tweeting about my work, what I’m excited about, what peers and colleagues are up to that I want to bring attention to. Sharing business-related updates on Facebook 1-3 times a day and responding to comments once a day.

Useless activity: Tweeting every quirky thought that enters my head, just because I have working fingers and an empty box that can hold 140 characters. Scrolling through my Home feed on Facebook. And scrollingandscrollingandscrolling. Like. Scrollscrollscroll.

Adding value: Intentionally logging into Twitter 1-2 times a day, for 10 minutes or so at a time, to thank people for retweets, interact, answer questions. Checking out what peers and colleagues are up to on Facebook for business, Liking what’s genuinely exciting to me, and offering comments where I have something to add. Then getting the hell off.

Useless activity: Tweeting thank-you’s within 2 minutes of every share, and getting lost in back-and-forth convo for 20 minutes with whomever happens to be online at that moment {however much I like and appreciate them}. Doing this eight times a day. Bouncing from Facebook biz page share to the sharer’s blog, reading their blog post, reading the blog post they link to in that blog post, and — you know how it goes.

DAY 19

I notice that my Twitter followership has continued to grow at my usual rate even though I’ve been off of Twitter for two and a half weeks. And as per usual, about two-thirds of them look like quality follows, not spammers or people who followed after searching some rogue keyword {“sea salted sesame seeds, anyone?”}

Over the past couple days, I’ve caught myself missing Twitter and Facebook. I’m missing the feeling of being haphazardly folded into distant friends’ lives by virtue of a one-time digital connection, the click of an Accept, and I’m missing being in the loop of colleagues’ business plans {what’s Brit Hanson been up to?}.

I also miss the constant cameraderie of my private Facebook group for copywriting professionals, which I co-facilitate with Emma Alvarez Gibson. These ladies have been an incredible support and resource over the past several months. From afar, it feels to me like they’re all on vacation somewhere and I wasn’t able to make it.

My business plans have been progressing nicely. I’ve spent the majority of my hiatus energy working behind the scenes on the service I’m developing with a new collaborative partner, whom I’ll be sharing about soon. I’ve also spent several rich hours curating a file of inspiration images for the talented web designer who’ll be bringing the next iteration of my business’s visual identity to life.

And I’ve been doing lots of client work, still maintaining nearly a full-time production schedule while I’ve been social media-quiet, so emails, collaborating in Google Docs, and Skype sessions haven’t stopped. Rather, I’ve found that I have even more energy for creative work than I did before I ever went on hiatus. The work comes more quickly, with less effort, and the work seems — better.

DENOUEMENT

This hiatus, with two full days still left in it, has showed me exactly what my addictive patterns around social media use look and feel like. I can’t believe how much more relaxed my nervous system feels. I have more focus and energy for my personal life, too.

I have a structure in mind for how I’ll return to Twitter and Facebook next week once my hiatus is over. I refuse to act like the now-thin person coming off of a successful diet and resuming eating ‘whole hog.’ I’ve got to eeeeeaaaaase back in, retrain my brain to engage on these platforms in shorter, more intentional bursts, and take action quickly to log out once I’ve recognized that I’ve passed the point of diminishing returns.

All in all, what I’m recognizing is the story I’ve told myself so frequently over the last several years of creative self-employment {6 and counting!}: that’s there’s never enough time to get everything done.

That’s true if we’re staring at a dining hall full of everything. Business goals grow and the attendant tasks they require mushroom and multiply. And so it’s easy to distract ourselves from the whole enchilada in front of us by Twittering and Facebooking away the hours, groaning over our lack of perceived productivity.

One thing I’ve learned over the past three weeks is this: there’s enough time in any day to move any worthwhile project forward. And incremental forward progress is where it’s at.

This business shift I’m heading toward has been a long time in the making. If I could have future-cast this 6 years ago when I first opened my brick and mortar retail shop, I probably could have envisioned myself doing something exactly like what I’m now building behind the scenes.

What I couldn’t have predicted were the quality of the relationships I now have in place to make this happen. I finally have my right people. {And I’m getting ready to teach you how to find yours.}

In the comments, I’d love to know . . .

Have you ever taken a social media hiatus or digital hiatus? How did you know you needed one? What did you learn?

Photo: allaboutgeorge