After the 30-Day Social Media Ban: What Surprised Me & What I'm Changing

A month ago, I posted here and announced that I was going on a monthlong Digital Detox/Social Media Ban. I made the decision to give it a try after reading Cal Newport’s new book Digital Minimalism. You can read the original post here if you missed it. But now I’m back with my report from the land without social media!

To be honest, I didn’t expect this experiment to be all that revelatory. I have been working on dialing back my digital distractions for about two years now. I’ve been blogging about that journey along the way. I thought a month without social media would be a good break and “detox” because I was annoyed that I was checking my phone so often again. However, it ended up being a lot more enlightening than I ever expected.

First, a play-by play

Week 1 - This is harder than it looks

I went into this way too confident, y’all. Smug, even. I got this, I thought. Ha. Week One told me to have a seat and rethink that notion. The initial week was tough! I kept picking up my phone and swiping to the screen that usually held my social media apps, and I had nothing to push because I had deleted them. The reflex was a hard one to break.

Also, I had posted about my social media break, and I wanted to see what people had to say about it, but I couldn’t. The need to get that little mental boost (aka dopamine) that people are reading your posts was real. I had to take my social media shortcuts off my desktop because I found myself too tempted to “just check.”

My Book of the Month came in the mail, and I wanted to take a pic for Instagram, and I realized I had nowhere to post it. I didn’t take a pic. (This would become a theme. I took a lot less photos in general.)

Day 5 - The Black Moment

In fiction, you eventually lead characters to the “all hope is lost” moment, which we call the black moment. My black moment on this journey hit at Day 5. I was really missing chatting with people online and checking social media. I yearned for it, lol. I felt this haze of loneliness even though I was still texting with friends and had my family around me. Day 5 made me question whether I could do it.

My guess is that when people try these social media breaks and give up, it’s probably around this day in the process. But wait! Hold out! Because…

Day 6 - Holy productivity, Batman!

The day after I was missing social media, I sat down in my office and started a stretch of days that would become some of my most productive ever. This month, I was working on putting together a new online romance writing course for beginners. In three days, I wrote 17k words of lectures. I hit a level of flow and deep work that I didn’t think I was capable of. I blogged more about that here, but I was able to manage four hours straight of focused work without any struggle. I was so excited that I was getting so much done, the yearning for social media began its rapid decline.

Week 2 - Traveling & Scandal

I put a similar background on my phone to remind me what I should be doing instead of picking it up. This one is from Austin Kleon and you can grab it here.

During week two, I traveled with my family to Florida for the Daytona 500. This meant sitting in airports, flying on planes, and then having a lot of downtime in the hotel room in between races—all with no social media. Normally, I would’ve been posting photos from the trip and scrolling through my feeds. Instead, I read in the downtime. I ended up reading one and half books on the three-day trip. Also, in some of the downtime in the room, my family and I used the Heads Up app to play the game and fill the time. We ended up laughing to the point of tears. I’m not sure I would’ve thought to bring out the game if I hadn’t been on the social media fast. I was bored. It gave me the idea to play the family game.

It was a little strange not being able to post pictures or video from the trip, but that just meant that I could keep my phone tucked in my bag for most of the trip. I did share some photos in my newsletter.

Another thing that happened in week two was a big plagiarism scandal in the romance writing community. Normally, when this kind of thing happens, all the social media networks light up with the “breaking news” and then everyone’s take on it. I have lost whole days in the past following that kind of thing. Instead, because I wasn’t on social media, I was alerted about it by a friend via text, and she sent me the link for blog posts about it after the facts were straight. It was so much calmer learning about what was going on from a well thought-out blog post rather than the 100mph feeds and noise of social media. The lesson here was that I wasn’t uninformed. I still heard about it. But I could get the information in a calmer way.

Week 3 - I’m a believer

I stopped missing social media. I honestly, truly did. I was drunk on productivity and focus, y’all. Lol. Being able to have that level of intent focus and mental flow without even trying was like playing with a new toy. It reminded me of how things used to be when I was in high school and college, when I could deep dive into projects for hours at a time. I wrote a novel when I was fifteen. There’s no way that would’ve happened if I’d grown up with Facebook in my pocket. I used to be able to concentrate. Now, I had the ability back. It felt like magic.

Week 4 - Finishing and Fear

This past week, I had days where I worked in deep work mode for 7 hours, only stopping briefly midday to eat lunch. The online class I thought would take me another 3 weeks minimum to get ready was done. Not only done, but edited, uploaded, and open for enrollment. That is crazy banana pants to me. I finished the project almost a month ahead of schedule. I know it had everything to do with this experiment.

I use the music program Focus @ Will for background music, and it tracks how long you use it. I only have it on when I’m actively working. So this is what my days started to look like. That’s 7 hours of focused work if you’re math-challenged like I am. Seven hours!

However, with that thrill of success came a hint of fear about coming back to it all. I knew from the start that I wouldn’t leave social media forever. Beyond being part of my job, I am a member of a number of author groups online that truly bring me joy. BUT I didn’t want to lose this newfound superpower. I knew I needed to figure out a way not to fall back into old habit. So that’s what I’ll be talking about in the rest of this post.

But first, a recap of what I gotten done in a month without the social media distraction:

• Wrote 33k words of lectures for the class.

• Edited 55k words.

• Researched teaching platforms and learned how to use one.

• Created worksheets for the class.

• Blogged and wrote newsletters.

• Created a slideshow and promo video for the class.

• Loaded and formatted 7 weeks worth of lectures into the class platform.

• Rebuilt the format of my author newsletter.

• Set up text to speech on my blog (if you click the little button next to the title, it will read the post to you.)

• Read 8 books. Eight!

• Went on a vacation and didn’t work.

• Opened my course for enrollment (there are still a few spots left at the beta price if you’re interested)

• Spent more time with my family without my face in my phone

Observations

• I took less photos (not sure if that’s a good or bad thing.)

• The time I spent on my phone (according to Screen Time) was about 2 hours a day. This is down about an hour from usual (7 hours added to my week!) This experiment didn’t make me stop using my phone completely. Almost all time spent on it was text messaging, reading articles on Safari, and podcasts.

• The morning was often when I missed social media the most because my husband would grab for his phone, and I’d have nothing to do for those first few minutes before I got out of bed. I ended up reading articles most of the time.

• Sometimes it was inconvenient not to have Facebook simply for logistical purposes. Restaurants only had a FB page or I needed to access one of kidlet’s activities, but they do everything through FB.

• When I blogged, I had no way to share my posts outside of my newsletter, so that felt a little frustrating. (I could’ve shared it remotely without actually getting on social media, but that felt like cheating.)

• I didn’t miss anything urgent or important while I was gone. I signed on yesterday and had hundreds of notifications, but nothing was urgent. (Also I found out that Instagram only lets you look back through 2 weeks of notifications, so the other two weeks are lost unless someone tagged me.)

The biggest takeaway

This felt entirely different from the things I’ve done in the past like blocking social media for a few hours while I work or taking a digital sabbath. Those give you a break, but don’t impact the habit. I think this long of a break is much more disruptive in stopping bad patterns and clearing your mind so that you can look at social media with a more skeptical eye. You get a taste of what it’s keeping you from. For me, that was higher focus and productivity but also a sense of calm.

So if you’re thinking about doing something like this for yourself, give yourself the full month. Don’t trick yourself into thinking that quitting for the weekend is going to make any real difference. I also highly recommend reading Digital Minimalism first because Newport gives a lot of tips on how to best set yourself up for the 30 days. If you go cold turkey with no plan on what to replace that social media time with, you’re more likely to give up in that black moment.

Going Forward

Gretchen Rubin talks about in her book Better Than Before that some people are moderators and some are abstainers. Meaning, some people do better with creating a habit by completely abstaining from something: I never drink soft drinks. Others do better as moderators: I only drink soft drinks twice a week.

Most people think they’re moderators, but I have a feeling that more of us would be better as abstainers. There was relief in knowing checking social media wasn’t an option at all. There was no decision to be made. The line was clear. And really, that is how I quit soft drinks fifteen years ago. I went from a four-a-day Diet Mt. Dew habit to zero and never went back. Abstaining was the key for me.

However, with social media, abstaining isn’t realistic for me (and many of you) in the job I’m in. I also don’t want to lose the good things I enjoy about social media like my Facebook groups. But after this experiment, I know that I need to make some serious changes because I don’t want to give up the newfound focus and calm.

My plan for bringing social media back into my life

1. Put 20 minute daily limits (via Screentime feature) on Facebook and Instagram on my phone.

   I thought that the phone would be the biggest issue for me and, for a while, planned to not put Facebook back on it. But I realized through this experiment that the phone was much less of a problem than checking on my desktop and disrupting my work day. So I have put these two back on my phone but with strict limits.

   UPDATE (3.18.19): I’ve taken Facebook off my phone again. Having it back for a few days made me realize that even with my best intentions, I find myself checking it more than I want. The 20-minute limits were too easy to get by because I just had to click “ignore limit” and it opened. I’ve left Instagram on my phone because that app doesn’t call to me very much. I’m fine checking that one a time or two a day and that’s it.

2. Turned on the Downtime feature on my phone starting at 8pm and ending at 6am.

   This will keep my from randomly checking my phone while I’m watching TV with the fam and hanging out with them.

3. No more social media shortcuts on my desktop.

   They are way too easy to click when I hit a hard spot in my work.

4. I’m keeping Twitter off my phone.

   I was already doing this before and plan to continue.

5. Only check social media on my desktop at lunch time and on weekends.

   This is the one that’s still in flux. I have also considered using my Hey Focus blocking app and blocking access to social media in the morning work zone and afternoon work zone, but I almost feel like I need to lean on that abstainer concept and make it very clear: I only check social media on my computer at lunchtime and on weekends.

   UPDATE (3.18.19): This hasn’t worked so far. I find that I need to check at least Facebook in morning to clear out the messages and respond or not having checked it becomes the distraction. I may shift this to checking in the morning in an allotted time and then at lunch. Still working this one out.

I may tweak these or come up with different methods, but I’ll report back. I have a genuine worry that I’ll fall back into old patterns, and I really, really don’t want to. I have a new book to write, and I love having the focus superpower. I’m thinking of getting a cape. ;)

So…thoughts? Questions? Suggestions? Anyone else going to try their own digital declutter?

And for any writers interested in my course, here’s the video with all the details. I’ll be closing registration soon because we’re getting close to full! Course starts March 30th.

The Digital Declutter & Why I'm Taking a 30-Day Social Media Break

If you’ve followed me for any amount of time, you know that one of my favorite topics to explore and evaluate is our relationship with devices, the internet, and social media. For two summers, we’ve done device-free summer with kidlet and have had a lot of success with that (he even requested to have one last summer when I wasn’t planning on it.) It truly changed my kid. I realized today I don’t even know where his Ipad went. I haven’t seen it in almost a year. He used to be attached to that thing. And video games, which had hooked him hard, are now played as an afterthought and for hardly any time at all. He now complains to me that all the kids at school want to talk about is Fortnight—a game he’s never played and has no interest in playing. So I’m a believer in the digital detox or break, or in this case, declutter.

Unlike kidlet, I haven’t gone device-free, but I’ve done a number of things over the years to curtail my constant need to check my phone and other things on the internet so that I can focus and get my writing (aka deep work) done. I’m constantly refining my process. So when I heard Cal Newport, author of Deep Work, was coming out with a new book called Digital Minimalism, you know I was pre-ordering that thing as fast I could click. The book released this week, and I’m almost all the way through it. I’ll probably give a more thorough review once I’m done, but it’s already inspired me to try his method of a 30-Day Digital Declutter.

This isn’t a detox per se. It’s more of a swipe the slate clean of all your social media (and other digital distractions that may suck up your time like video games or too much TV streaming), see how you feel for 30 days. And then, after thirty days, scrutinize each app or service carefully to decide whether or not you want to add it back into your life.

I don’t anticipate that I will give up all social media after this. For one, it’s part of my job. However, I am looking forward to breaking my cycle of check, check, checking my phone in the bored moments or when I first wake up. I had already deleted Twitter off of my phone a few months ago and haven’t felt the need to add it back. For this thirty day stretch, I’m deleting Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest off my phone as well. I also won’t be checking these sites on my desktop. No social media. Period.

My plan is to post the graphic at the top of this post on all my social media channels, letting people know why I’m not responding, and then will step fully away for the month. During this time, I plan to continue to blog and send out my newsletter, so I’m not going off the grid, just social media.

I’m interested to see how my attention shifts during the month and how this will all make me feel. Will I have the itch to check? Will I feel calmer because I don’t have to check? Will I feel out of the loop? Will I get more work done? Will I fill that time with something better or something equally as distracting? I love an experiment, so I’m looking forward to finding out!

As always, I’ll report how things went after the month is up (or maybe even along the way). And if anyone is interested in doing something similar, you can check out the details of the Digital Declutter in Digital Minimalism.

UPDATE: After the 30-Day Social Media Ban: What Surprised Me and What I’m Changing and also Training My Brain For Deep Work: Two and Half Years In

Interested in this topic?

Here’s a list of other posts I’ve done about devices and digital distractions:

• A Screen-Free Summer for Kidlet: How, Why, & If I'll Lose My Mind

• The 10-Day Update 

• 5 Week Update on Screen-Free Summer

• The End of Our Screen-Free Summer: Results and Moving Forward

• The After-Effects of Our Device-Free Summer

• Device-Free Summer 2.0: Why We’re Doing This Again

• 7 Things to Reduce Distractions and Increase Focus

• On Productivity and Distraction: Deep Work

• Revisiting Deep Work

• Stop Letting Your Inbox Distract You: Making Rules Work For You

What I'm Watching This Summer

Summertime is the time of sunshine and the outdoors...well, in other places. Here in Dallas, summertime is full of sunshine and unbearable heat. Today it's 90 and it feels like autumn to me because we've been dealing with 105-110 temperatures for over two weeks and 90 truly feels like relief. We'll get a few days of this before the temperature races back up again.

But all this is to say that in summer, I often end up catching up on TV watching because we're indoors hiding from the heat. So I thought I'd pass along what I'm watching this summer both on TV and YouTube. And I'd love to hear what interesting shows you've found recently!

For pure soapy reality TV

Big Brother on CBS

If you've followed me for any length of time, you know that I'm a long time Big Brother fan. I look forward to it every summer, and it's become a family tradition. Hubs and I love all the strategy and personality dynamics. Kidlet loves all the competitions. (We fast forward through any not-safe-for-10-year-olds moments.) It's quite a commitment with three episodes a week, but I eat it up like candy. My favorite contestant this year in Tyler. I love that he came on and was all "I'm just a dumb, cute lifeguard" and has turned out to be the most socially strategic and smart player so far. The writer in me loves characters, and Big Brother always gives me good fodder for analysis.

Fun for the Whole Family

The Middle

Last summer kidlet and I picked a show to binge watch together for device-free summer. Last year was The Goldbergs, which has become a family favorite (and kidlet obsession) now. This summer, we've picked The Middle. (Side note: finding a truly family friendly modern sitcom is a challenge! But this one fits the bill.) We're almost done with season 2 and are really enjoying it. If you want to binge watch this one, it's not streaming anywhere for free (last I checked) but Freeform and the Hallmark channel have been running the seasons marathon style and we've been taping them, so look for that.

For the Music Lover

The Big Interview with Dan Rather

This is one hubs found on one of his favorite channels AXS. Dan Rather interviews famous musicians. (He may interview more than musicians, but the ones we've watched have all been musicians.) These interviews were taped a few years ago, but they are fascinating. Dan Rather is a master interviewer, and if you love music, you'll love the stories he pulls out of the people he puts in his interview chair. So far we've watched interviews with Greg Allman of The Allman Brothers, Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin, and Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top. Even if you don't know much about the particular band/artist (I knew hardly anything about The Allman Brothers) the interviews will pull you in. Highly recommended.

For Nostalgia or a Peek Inside 90s Teenhood

My So-Called Life

I mentioned a while back that I was so excited that one of my favorite podcast duos were starting the My So-Called Podcast where they rewatch episodes of My So-Called Life and then comment on them. This has been so much fun--to rewatch one of my very favorite shows from my teen years through adult eyes and then follow each episode up by listening to Jillian and Patrick pick apart the episodes in a funny yet respectful superfan kind of way. It's made it such a multi-layered experience. It's made me laugh a lot but also has made me wonder what the hell I was thinking loving Jordan Catalano (played by Jared Leto) back when I was 14. I mean, yes, he's beautiful, but dude, he was SUCH a jerk on that show. Adult Me totally wants to yell at him for his behavior. Anyway, if you want to rewatch or watch for the first time. Here's where you can stream it and here's where you can find the podcast.

For Your Brain

The 2000s on CNN

CNN has made series about many of the decades and every time, I am so here for it. I believe they started with The Sixties. That's the first one I watched at least, and they've gone on to make a series for each decade. This summer it is The 2000s. The show is produced by Tom Hanks and is done in such a great way that I get hooked every time. Each show will take one topic of that decade and do a deep dive. So, for instance, the episode we watched this week was all about technology and the "I-Decade"--the iPod, iPhone, iPad, social media, etc. Even though we all lived through it, it's fascinating to look back and really think about how much has changed so quickly. There was also an episode on TV shows in the 2000s and then there are the political ones (9/11, the Iraq War, etc.). I believe there is a music one coming up. All very well done. And if you haven't watched the previous seasons--60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s--they've all been fantastic.

For Your Body and Mind

Yoga with Adriene

I am trying to create a yoga habit, but I have trouble making it to classes because the timing never works out. So I've started doing yoga in the mornings at home. There are tons of free videos on YouTube, but I've found that the ones I like the best are from Yoga with Adriene. The videos are well shot, the routines are doable, there are lots of routines of varying length if I don't have a lot of time. Plus, Adriene is easy to follow and comes across as very down to earth. If you're looking to get some yoga into your life, check out her channel.

For the Planner Lover and Writers

Heart Breathings with Sarra Cannon

Y'all know I love a planner and anything having to do with productivity systems. I recently returned from the RWA (Romance Writers of America) conference where I met up with the writer/planner group I'm in online. So fun! And I happened to sit next to author Sarra Cannon who had brought her 90-day planner. I loved her set up and found out she has a YouTube channel where she talks about all things planning and writing. I blame her for the kanban board I put together this week. But if you're a planner girl (or guy!) like me, her channel is worth checking out. 

That's all I've got for y'all today! Tell me what you're watching and loving this summer. : )

Self-Care Necessities: Little Happy Things (+ Three of Mine This Summer)

The world can seem like a very dark place sometimes, and I know that most of us have been feeling the weight of that for a while. That's not to say the world hasn't gone through dark times before, but I think now that we're exposed to fast-flowing news and social media nonstop, it's sometimes hard to see out of it and find some light.

But finding that light and a few little happy things is often vital, especially if you're a highly empathetic person or someone prone to depression and anxiety. So first, remember to take care of yourself. Second, don't feel guilty for doing so. Third, don't let anyone shame you for not wanting to be immersed in the negative stuff all the time. Do what you can to stay informed and help the causes and people you care about, but also realize that you're no good to anyone if doing so is causing your own mental or physical health to suffer.

I've talked about this before, so I won't go too deeply into it, but I just wanted to put that reminder out there. It's one I need to give myself pretty often too. And one of the things I've found helpful for me is to find some little happy things that make me smile. This is one reason why I'm a romance reader and writer. We need to read those happy endings to remind ourselves they're possible. So first on my list is obvious.

1. Read books that make you feel good.

For me that's usually romance and YA. For you, it may be books that make you cry but are cathartic. Or it may be books that engage your mind in a mystery. You do you. But for me, there's often no better way to cheer myself up than to get lost in a great book. If you need a recommendation, I read Christina Lauren's Love and Other Words recently and loved it so hard. It just left a big ol' smile on my face. (If you like my books, I think it has a similar emotional feel to the kind of stories I write, if that helps.)

2. Upbeat music that gets you singing or dancing along

If I've had a rough day or am feeling blue, the quickest way to turn it around for me is to switch on my favorite playlist when I start cooking dinner and sing/dance alone while I cook. It's a great way to shake off the day and transition into relaxed family time. I know music is super personal, so suggesting something that everyone will like is impossible. However, I can tell you that after my family saw The Struts open for the Foo Fighters a couple of weeks ago, we have been OBSESSED. Opening bands rarely capture my attention, but The Struts grabbed mine right from the start. The lead singer is a great showman and reminds me a lot of Freddie Mercury, and the songs are just so catchy and fun to sing. I highly recommend checking out their full playlist but here's a taste. I apologize ahead of time for the earworm. Every one of their songs is an earworm. I think I've been singing "Put Your Money on Me" for a month straight.

3. Spending time with those you love with no news on TV in the background and without checking your phone.

I've talked about how we're doing device-free summer again, and that always gets us playing board games. Sometimes I'm feeling like--ugh, I so don't feel like playing a game right now--but once we start, my competitive side kicks in and before I know it, we're all having fun. We had quite a game of Upwords the other night where hubs trash talked me and then lived to regret it when I beat him badly in the game, lol. We also had a lot of fun last weekend playing ping pong. Those unplugged things sometimes take some effort to start, but they really do feel good once you're doing them.  

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So those are just a few of mine. Not everyone's little happy things are going to be the same. A little happy thing for me is decorating my planner or writing in my reading journal. They seem like silly things but work for me. You need to find those things that let you take a deep breath and restore some balance. So go ahead, have a little fun, and don't feel bad about it. It doesn't mean you're ignoring the problems in the world. It just means that you're making sure you're not on the airplane putting everyone else's mask on first and then collapsing in the aisle because you forgot you needed to breathe too.

Slowing Down & Savoring Summer: A Few Strategies

I mentioned in my last post Device-Free Summer 2.0 that in addition to kidlet going device-free for another summer, I was looking for way to slow down our summer. Today I'm tackling that topic more in depth.

Summers for us usually mean a shift in our schedule but not a change in the hectic-ness of it. Kidlet isn't in school, but he goes to full-time day camp. Hubs and I are still working. Books still need to be written and edited and promoted. I'm used to that being our summer.

However, last week (week two of summer) when I found myself up before 7am and already yelling, "Where's the sunscreen? Where'd you put your tennis shoes? We're going to be late! Someone grab a juice box!", I realized that not only was I NOT getting any kind of slow down in summer, it almost felt more crazy--for all of us. This was in part because we'd spent seven days in New York City for a combo vacation/work trip right after school ended, so we'd hit the ground running with a very fun but busy trip. But it also felt like more that just that. I was deeply tired of this rush.

It gave me the very pointed craving to slow the hell down for summer. Summer used to have this promise to it when I was growing up--a promise of lazy days and an open schedule. Yes, it was blazing hot and humid in south Louisiana. Yes, I was an only child and often got bored. But that's also the time I got to read all the books I wanted. It's when I got to goof around at the pool with friends or run through sprinklers. It was walks down the road to the sno-ball stand (they are NOT snow cones in Louisiana) without your parents. 

My kiddo has never had that kind of summer because summers are generally scheduled events now. (Not just for me but most of the kids I know.) There are summer camps and music camps and STEM camps and sports teams/games and blah blah blah. Part of that is necessary. Even though I'm home, I'm working full-time. My job doesn't stop in the summer, and kidlet would get hella bored being home all day every day by himself with me working (and him device-free,) But I'm now wondering if we've swung too far in the other direction and maybe could use some balance. Meaning, work in some lazy, slow stuff into the busy schedule for us all. Allow time for boredom and creativity and white space.

So, though kidlet already has two weeks of pre-scheduled, already paid for speciality camps, I'm going to try him on half days instead of full for his regular summer camp and only bring him in the afternoons. I get most of my deep work/writing down in the afternoon anyway, so this should work for me. In the mornings, I can get easier work stuff done and also spend some time with him. We shall see how it goes.

But this got me to thinking more about how fast time goes. This past school year flew by, and I know summer will as well if I don't do something different. I mean, we can't actually slow down time, but I wondered if there were things we could do to savor it more and make it feel a little more languid.

This is what made me pick up the book Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done by Laura Vanderkam. (Yes, it has the same title as one of my books, but is a very different topic! lol) Y'all know I love a productivity book, but this one is less about productivity, and more about finding the white space in your schedule and feeling like you have "all the time in the world" instead of feeling like you're always rushed and behind.

Vaderkam had a large group of people in different professions track their time, and she used the results for this book. One interesting thing she found was that a lot of the people in very busy, high-powered positions often felt like they had more time, but it was because they'd learn strategies to make it that way. So this book goes into a number of strategies to help create that feeling of space in your schedule, of slowing down and savoring.

I won't go deeply into each of these because the book is worth a read and I did lots of underlining, but each strategy has its own chapter title and I'll touch on those.

Chapter 1: Tend Your Garden

Her basic premise here is that in order to do anything about your time, you need to know where it's actually going. We're really bad at estimating how much time we spend doing certain things. Like, you know, how often we're sucked into social media. Or how few minutes it actually takes to wash the dishes. So she recommends tracking your time by the half-hour ALL DAY for at least a week. 

"...one of the most striking findings of my survey was the gap in estimated phone checks per hour between people who felt relaxed about time and those who felt anxious" --pg. 8

I've done time-tracking on and off over the years, which is made easy with the Day Designer planner I use, and I have found it helpful. If you're honest in your tracking, you can see where your time is getting wasted or squandered. It's sobering when you realize you popped over to check twitter for a minute and wasted forty minutes instead. So this practice takes discipline, but I think it is a great exercise to kind of give you an overview.

"Time passes whether or not we think about how we are spending it. Tracking forces me to think about it." --pg. 35

Chapter 2: Make Life Memorable

This was probably my favorite chapter of the book. I have a TERRIBLE memory. Terrible, y'all. And I hate that so many memories sift through my fingers (probably because I'm moving too fast.) So this chapter was about the science of what makes a memory stick. We know that novel experiences and experiences with high emotion (good and bad) are more likely to burn into our memories. But does that mean the ordinary days are destined to just compress in our minds and give us that sense of time just flying by? Vanderkam argues that no, there are things we can do. She encourages us to record things in a journal (or in your time tracker if you're doing that). Nothing elaborate but something that will help the day stick a little better.

"One might inquire this of any twenty-four hours. Why is today different from all other days? Why should my brain bother holding on to the existence of this day as it curates the museum of my memories?" --pg. 64

I love this concept and am going to give it a try. I'm terrible at journaling, but this seems less intimidating--just marking down what was special about that day. Not only does it provide a record, but the actual act of writing it down helps your memory keep it better. And she said taking photos isn't enough because unless we curate them, it's just a big jumble of a file in our phone. (Guilty as charged!)

Chapter 3: Don't Fill Time

This one is pretty obvious but still not as easy in practice if you're not deliberate about it. The main points are: leave white space on your calendar (to account for things running over, unexpected things, thinking time, etc.) and don't say yes to things unless you really want/need to do it. (This goes back to the "if it's not a hell yes, it's a no" thing.) I liked a particular question she posed about how to decide whether to agree to something in the future. She warns that we don't think of our future selves as "us", so we assign those future versions of ourselves things present "us" really doesn't want to do because we think this imaginary future "us" will totally be into it by the time it gets here. I'm SO guilty of this. So she suggests this question:

"Would I do this tomorrow?" and "Would you be tempted? Would you try to move things around to fit this new opportunity?" --pg. 98

Also in the "don't fill time" category is the technology/phone habit. Every moment that you have to wait in a line or wait for an appointment doesn't need to be filled with social media or the web. It makes us fee busier. It erases that sense of downtime or space in your schedule (beyond being a distraction.) I also think it sucks up time we could use for those things we'd "like to do if we had more time." Like, for me, I always want more reading time. My TBR pile is out of control. But if I'm on the couch and bored and pick up my phone, I could lose half an hour just scrolling or answering email. Instead, I could pick up a book and spend that time doing something I love and want to do. When I started paying attention (and dialing back) my social media time last year, I noticed a big difference in how many books I read. (In 2016 I read 42 books, in 2017 I read 63. I've read almost 30 this year so far.)

Chapter 4: Linger

This chapter is mostly about mindfulness and learning to savor the present. One of the tactics I loved was recommended by a psychology professor she interviewed. He imagines himself in his elderly years when his health is failing and he can't do much anymore and imagines that version of himself looking back at today, feeling the wistfulness of "I wish I could be doing that again" and then knowing that, hey, that IS today for me. I'm here in this moment right now.

Chapter 5: Invest in Your Happiness

Her advice: if you can afford to, farm out hated/annoying tasks that can be done by others that are sucking up valuable time. If you can pay someone to cut your lawn and save yourself the time, do it. But this chapter also talked about "paying yourself first" with your time. Meaning, if you want to write a book, give yourself that chunk of time in your schedule first before anyone else gets your time. Even if it's just a little bit. I learned this when I took Becca Syme's Write Better Faster class--write first. Before the distractions come. Before the busy work or demands others put on your time. I don't always follow that because my creative brain kicks in more in the afternoon, but I still use it in concept because I block off that time for my writing. I give myself my most creative, productive hours and don't hand those off to other people's needs/tasks.

Chapter 6: Let It Go

Life is life, and things are going to get in the way of best laid plans. The water heater is going to break when you planned a writing day. You're going to get caught in traffic and screw up the afternoon's schedule. You're going to get a cold that knocks you on your butt. Vanderkam's advice is to learn to let it go. Just do what you can do with the time you have.

"When I tell myself, OK, you only have this time, just do what you can do, I surprise myself. I can write an article draft in a few hours. I can edit it in those ninety-minute chunks. Indeed, when I tell myself to just do what I can, even if it is only a little bit, because it is better than nothing, that something, done repeatedly, adds up." -- pg. 173 

I need this reminder often because I like to write in big three-hour blocks. If my schedule gets messed up and I only have an hour and a half, I feel like--well, why bother? But I can get a decent amount of words in an hour or whatever if I focus on it. So I need to not throw out the whole plan if things didn't go perfectly.

Chapter 7: People Are a Good Use of Time

This section focuses on spending quality time with your family and friends and colleagues because that kind of experience often expands time and makes great memories. What I particularly loved about this chapter was the idea of planning your off hours.

"Few people would show up at work at 8:00am with no idea about what they'd do until 1:00pm, and yet people will come home at 6:00pm having given no thought to what they'll do until they go to bed at 11:00pm. This is how people will claim to have no time for their hobbies, even though they're clearly awake for two hours or more after their kids go to bed...It is simply that they haven't thought about this time, and so it feels like it doesn't exist." --pg. 204

I love this idea and have seen it in action. Most of us don't want to schedule ourselves down to the second in our off time. However, last year when we did device-free summer, I had to be deliberate about what was going to fill some of kidlet's free time instead. I wanted to make it fun and to help him realize life without the devices and video games could be way cooler. So on our calendar I planned movie nights and board game night. I scheduled nights that he'd help me cook dinner. We planned for outings like putt putt or bowling. It gave the summer a feeling of adventure, and it cemented a lot of those things in my memory. I remember the movies we watched together as a family. I remember binge-watching The Goldbergs and teaching kidlet about life in the 80s. I remember an epic game of Upwords. It made simple things into events and made the summer feel special and full. I plan to do that again this summer, but I also need to take this idea and use it all through the year.

So, if you can't tell, I really enjoyed the book and got a lot from it. I'm going to take away a lot of ideas. I'm tracking my time again, and I'm going to attempt to journal. I'll report back!

How is your summer shaping up? Do you seek out a slow summer?