Taking control of my relationship with a time thief

If you’ve ever watched Doctor Who, you’ll know that messing with time means trouble. There’s never enough hours in the day and then something comes along and steals the time you do have. It can’t just be me who loses hours each week to the time thief. But here’s the thing, I don’t want to end my relationship with it completely. It has its good points, but it’s time for a change.

So come on, what is the time thief?

I start off each day determined to get through my to-do list and make every minute count. But then I pick up my phone and press the little blue ‘F’ and hours just disappear. I start flicking through to see what my friends are up to and before I know it I’m looking at funny pictures of cats or watching a video of somebody dunking a biscuit in a cup of tea at the end of bungee rope.

Seriously Facebook, what have you done to me? What have I become? And I can totally understand why people feel the need to deactivate their Facebook account. But is that the right option for me? Absolutely not.

I need an account in order to maintain my Facebook page. I also make a point of liking and commenting on things my friends share on their pages. It is a small gesture that can make all the difference to a blogger or small business owner. And more importantly, if I deactivated my Facebook account I might miss a hilarious cat GIF. And my life would be much poorer for that.

Taking back control

So what to do? Accept that many hours of my life will forevermore be swallowed up by articles I don’t need to read, videos I never really wanted to watch and cat photos? Or, do I give up my Facebook page, stop chatting on messenger to people I probably wouldn’t recognise in the street and take back my time? Well for me, there was a third option.

I have recently realised that I can still use Facebook page manager and messenger on my phone even if I remove the Facebook app. If I’m going to have a Facebook page I do need access to it at all times to reply to comments and messages and deal with any issues such as internet trolls. And I quite like Facebook messenger. I am rubbish at storing telephone numbers so being able to click on a picture of somebody’s face and ping them a message is ideal.

It’s not you, it’s me…

But as for Facebook itself? It really doesn’t need to be on my phone. So I’m not divorcing Facebook. It will provide a welcome distraction when I’m on the computer. I will still do my utmost to support friends and fellow bloggers with a like or comment on their posts. But it’s so much quicker on the computer and there’s less danger of undoing all my good work with a horrible auto-correct.

And the crux of it is that my relationship with Facebook has to change. When I’m in my right mind, my time is put to much better use by being fully present with my children. Doing one thing at a time rather than watching videos, reading articles and of course looking at cat photos whilst I do virtually every day-to-day task. So Facebook, it’s not you its me. But the honeymoon period is finally over and we need to spend less time together.

Do you have an unhealthy relationship with Facebook or have you reclaimed your time from the abyss?