Online Time Management Makeover: 2018 Edition

One of the things I’m really trying to get serious about in 2018 is regulating and reducing the amount of time I spend online. Not all web time is created equal, obviously, and I have no plans to abandon activities like emailing friends and looking up call scripts, language practice and story research. What I would like to do is cut WAY back on the time I spend mindlessly surfing the web or mindlessly scrolling through my social media feeds. I want to write more, read more, indulge in my other hobbies, and not be plugged into a screen for so much of my day.

In the past, it has been hard for me to gauge how much time I’m really spending online because it never feels like much. Minutes pass in the blink of an eye when I’m watching YouTube videos or surfing Facebook, and before I know it I’ve wasted the bulk of my night on activities that are more or less meaningless.

At Christmas this year, I found myself thinking that there’s no way in the world I will ever wake up one morning and wish I’d spent more time on the internet. But I could wake up and wish that I’d made more time for the people I love and the things that legitimately interest me if I don’t start making changes now.

And so, with that in mind, I set up a simple spreadsheet before the 1st of the year where I can jot down what day it is, what time I get online versus what time I get off, and what I’m doing within that time frame. I also keep track of how many times I use social media–defined for me as Facebook and Twitter–and how many total minutes I spend online.

It isn’t a foolproof system by any means, but in the ten days that I’ve been using it I’ve cut down my online time significantly. Numbers are tough to ignore, and realizing that you’ve spent two hours or more in one night screwing around on the internet has a way of making you much more productive the next day.

Although I’d love to come up with a better way to track time spent on my phone, which is where a lot of those extra minutes tend to slip through the cracks, I’m pretty happy with my spreadsheet and the changes I’ve made so far.

Do you have any tactics for reducing your online time? If there’s something I have to try, let me know in the comments.