How To Stop Facebook Killing Your Productivity
How To Stop Facebook Killing Your Productivty
As a complete Facebook lover I know only too well how easy it can be to think “I’ll just have a quick look at Facebook”, mean to spend a quick 10 minutes only to find you have lost a whole hour of clicking around, seeing what someone’s had for their lunch, the latest picture of their little one in their princess dress or you’ve lost yourself in a thread in a group that’s no longer relevant to you because having a quick look got the better of you!!!
Now like I’ve already said I completely love Facebook for both business and personal but when it starts to damage your productivity when you know you’ve got sh*t to do and you’ve just lost an hour of your day, time you can’t get back and you are left worrying how you are going to get everything done in the time you have left then you’ve got yourself a problem.
If you find yourself losing valuable time to Facebook I suggest you, follow the following steps / have a Facebook clean up.
Schedule your Facebook business posts
If you are not doing so already schedule your business posts using tools such as buffer, hootsuite or edgar, set time in your working week to plan your posts for the week ahead but not forgetting to set aside time for real time interaction and engagement.
Leave Facebook groups
Leave any Facebook groups those that no longer serve you, nothing to do with business but 2 years ago we bought a cockapoo puppy and I think I joined about 5 or 6 FB groups, how to train your puppy, cockapoo support society, you get my drift right? Now 2 years on these groups are no longer serving me but fill my newsfeed with pictures of cute puppies – distraction who doesn’t love a picture of a cute puppy. Now I wouldn’t say I’m an experienced dog owner she’s barking mad if I’m honest but 1 group is enough to be a part of now we’ve had her this long. The same goes for business groups no point being part of 50, what value are you getting and what value are you giving by being part of some many? it’s another distraction to add to your timeline – stick to no more than 10 and make sure they are the right ones for you. If you don’t want to leave the groups completely you can unfollow them and turn off notifications.
Facebook friends
Now I don’t know about you but I have “friends” on my list that I haven’t spoken to since I left school (many many moons ago) and it’s very likely that I’ll never speak or see them again, in fact since we’ve “connected” there hasn’t been so much of a “Hi, How are you” so seeing pictures of them half dressed on holiday or a picture of their dinner isn’t really appealing, so time to disconnect or unfollow?
Facebook strangers
Now I seem to be getting a large number of friend requests from people I haven’t “met” before and I completely understand why – your personal profile is now seen as a great tool to build up your network and I’ve met some great contacts this way, some whom have gone on to be clients, some I’ve worked with on Joint Ventures, some are now great friends and there are many that I learn from but then there are those that only have one thing on there mind and that is to sell something to you straight away, invite you to like their business page all without having any interaction beforehand to know you have any interest in their service or product….get rid of them you don’t need more noise on your newsfeed!
Facebook notifications
Beep beep bloody beep or constant flashing on your phone!!!
You know those times when you’ve commented on a friends post to congratulate them on their latest achievement or their recent engagement and then for the next hour you get notifications from 100+ of their friends also congratulating them, then you wish you never commented in the first place (not in a bad way I might add but just because of the distraction). You can solve this problem by unfollowing the post as soon as you’ve commented, as I write that it makes me feel bad but you had a look at the post you’ve acknowledge your happiness for them do you also need a million and one notifications too?
Log out of Facebook
If you know you’ve a bad habit when it comes to losing time to Facebook when you know you should be working on your business projects, then log out of it on your phone and laptop. Set aside 10 minutes (or so) 3 x a day to do your real time engagement / interaction for your business, giving value and learning from business groups and replying to messages. Now I’m not saying you get rid of all “social” activity it’s what Facebook is all about its why I love it but when it affects your day to day productivity in your business that’s when important to give yourself strict rules within the times you should be getting sh*t done, save the “social” for when that stuff is done!
So there you go have a Facebook clean up, use your time on there effectively, get rid of the noise and take charge of your newsfeed so you can continue to both enjoy it whilst still being productive…
Love, Dee
xx
