Lessons from 30 days of Facebook-less

“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst”~William Penn

The challenge was offered by Joshua of The Minimalists, “What are you willing to give up for 30 days?” 

I had been toying with the idea of 30 days of no personal Facebook time but his challenge gave me the fuel I needed. The one exception to this rule was only updating my blog and business pages once every few days. To make this challenge even more interesting I added giving up the morning news.

I never considered myself a Facebook addict, I did what I considered the “norm” checking in 3 or 4 times a day. What started happening during these daily visits though is more and more of my precious time was getting sucked into the Facebook vortex.

Then it became a habit, something I did every day whether I was updating my pages or not and I knew it had to stop!

So the challenge began and little did I realize what an incredible effect this 30 days would have by teaching me the value of my time and my life.

The first few days were a little tedious mainly because when the home page comes up you want to scroll down and see what is happening with all of your friends. I didn’t and once I moved past those first few days my momentum kept growing. I started noticing that I felt lighter and my mind was moving into a more creative mode.

In the absence of the morning news, my husband and I were eating our breakfast together at the table and talking. Yes, talking and enjoying the start of our day.

When you totally devoid yourself of all current events you will always have someone to keep you updated. My clients and friends would do just that, tell me about all of the happenings of the world with details and drama included.

Here’s the first amazing thing I noticed: By being Facebook-less and without the news my emotional response to any news I heard was diminished greatly. I didn’t have it thrown in my face over and over on Facebook or repeated on the morning and evening news. I could hear it from a third party, talk about and move on instead of being absorbed in the situation.

Day 9 produced the next amazing observation: There was space in my mind for other things to filter in and  the creative ideas poured in like pouring water into a bowl. The writing and creating started happening so fast that I had trouble getting all of these ideas down on paper.

This really started me wondering about what happens to all of our creativity when we fill up space in our minds with mindless things, like Facebook and other social media, too much news, reality TV and so on. What would this world be like if all of that collective creativity was released instead of suppressed?

Personally I think it would be awesome!

After day 9 each day became easier and easier. I lost that feeling of missing out on what was happening in the world and with my friends. I allowed my new found space in my mind to be taken up with things of my own choosing and have found that even now after my 30 days are up I’m more guarded about how I spend my time. Yes I can still fall into the Facebook trap or get back into watching the news so there is no perfect solution but there is CHOICE and I have chosen to spend my time on the things that I think are more important in my life, one of which is my writing.

What about you? Is there something in your life that you have been wanting to give up and needed that little push to do it? It doesn’t have to be something big, more to the point sometimes it can be something small that can have the biggest impact. You won’t know until you try.

To “pay it forward” I would like to offer up the same challenge to you, my wonderful readers. What are you willing to give up for 30 days? 

Love to hear your comments on what you would like to give up and report back after 30 days to hear how you did. Remember we are all here to help each other and what you learn along your journey may help someone else. I hope my journey helped you!

photo credit: Fiduz via photopin cc