One year ago today, I blogged about wanting to better manage my online time in 2018. I was tired of feeling as though I never had time to do anything that mattered to me, and although I’d cut out and streamlined as much of the unnecessary minutiae from my life as I could, I’d never made any real effort to curb my internet usage. There were a number of reasons for this in all likelihood, but the two biggest were:
- Deep down, I didn’t really want to.
- It seemed really, really hard.
Back in 2017, I’d convinced myself that I didn’t use the internet all that much, or at least not as much as lots of other people I knew and interacted with, and I’d also convinced myself that I wasn’t really wasting that much time checking Facebook or Twitter occasionally, watching YouTube videos, or compulsively checking my email. This whole mindset seems ridiculous to me now, because:
- Time completely disappears when you’re surfing the web (and even more so when you’re scrolling through social media feeds), and so my perception of how much time I wasted was probably far from correct.
- Even if my internet usage was less than other people’s–which was doubtful, in retrospect–I was still spending more than enough time on the internet to wreak havoc on my productivity and my mental health.
And thus began the quest that I laid out in that initial 2018 post to track how much time I spent online every day, what I was doing with that time, and more specifically, how many times per day I logged onto a social media site. Although my initial plan was to track every minute of online usage for a full 365 days, I did wind up changing a few of my own rules once I realized not all online time is created equal. For example, I don’t add the minutes spent blogging, submitting short stories or articles, or researching potential markets for short stories or articles as “online time,” because those things are rooted in advancing my writing career. I also stopped tracking time spent online for strictly productive purposes, such as repeatedly checking a recipe I’m in the process of making, scrolling through how-to guides for various household tasks I’m attempting, and tackling certain wedding tasks such as taking note of which guests had given gifts through our online registry. I don’t chart the YouTube videos I watch while I’m mending my clothes or doing the dishes or involved in something else that’s productive and brainless. And after a couple of months of consideration, I also stopped tracking the minutes that I spend online at work.
This last exemption may look a lot like cheating, but there are actually a few valid explanations for why online time at work and online time at home are created equal. For one thing, I have to check my email at work. (Shocker, I know.) I have cut wildly back on the number of times that I check my work email per day, which has been good for my productivity and good for my sanity, and I try not to leave my inbox open at all times unless I’m expecting a message or replying to someone. And for another, I almost never end up online unless I’m either a) taking a short break from my work after three or four straight hours of doing nothing but work–sorry not sorry, by the way–or b) it is really freaking dead in the office. When it’s dead in the office, I could, in theory, create work for myself out of thin air, which I do sometimes do. I could sit on my butt and twiddle my thumbs while I wait for patients to show up or the phone to ring or one of my coworkers to need something. Or I could write up a quick book review or respond to emails from friends or post (occasionally) witty statuses on Twitter or read some of the blogs that I follow.
Maybe those things all still sound like cheating, but the truth is that I spend plenty of time at my day job where there just isn’t much going on–which most everyone who works in an office can relate to–and so I see no point in punishing myself for tackling online tasks that I don’t want to deal with at home or taking a few minutes to socialize, catch up on the news, or talk about books.
Anyway.
When I last blogged about how my online time tracking was going all the way back in April, I’d spent roughly 8% of my available time online in both February and March, and used social media 74 times and 89 times outside of work respectively. Fast-forward to the last three months of the year, when I’d wrapped up the whole getting married process and come back from my honeymoon and found myself with A LOT more free time overall, and I’d cut both of those numbers dramatically. In October, I’d spent 6% of my available time online and used social media 31 times outside of work. In November, I’d also spent 6% of my available time online and used social media 33 times. And in December, I spent only 5% of my available time online, although I did see my social media sign-ins jump to 52 thanks to my attempts at keeping up with people over the holidays, having more time to screw around as a result of the holidays, and trying to stay active on Twitter and Slack for a change.
Although the numbers alone feel pretty impressive to me, what matters the most is how much more time I already have and how much better I feel. Not having to wedding plan anymore has probably helped my anxiety a ton, let’s be honest, but so has cutting back on the number of times I check my email and surf social media. I’ve been writing a lot more and working out a lot more and tackling a few different offline side projects that I’ve had on the back burner for months. I could still use more hours in the day, and I could still manage my time better–couldn’t we all?–but on the whole I’m happy with how much progress I’ve made.
I’m continuing to track my online time in 2019 following all of the guidelines I’ve laid out above, and I’d like to be even more intentional with what I’m doing online and how long I’m doing it for. My stretch goal is to keep my social media sign-ins below 40 and to spend 4% or less of my available hours on the internet for at least 75% of the next twelve months. I can’t help the hours I work, or the time I spend on useful adult stuff like cooking and housework, or the time I spend sleeping. But I can help the hours I waste on the internet, and I can still be better about directing my time and energy toward activities that are healthier and more important and more enjoyable to me.
I’ll let you know how it turns out. 🙂
Is there something you’re trying to cut back on this year if not online time? Tell me about it in comments.