We all know that Facebook can really be a time suck. It’s possible to log in to your account for one small thing, and find yourself still browsing your timeline an hour later.
Since bloggers depend on social media for their business to thrive, we need Facebook – but we also need to control the time we spend there so we can get things done!
Read on for five steps bloggers can take to reduce the time spent on Facebook every day.
1. Save direct links to important threads
Grabbing the permalink to a specific group or thread lets you bypass the homepage. This means you won’t see your best friend’s vacation photos or the funny article your cousin shared. By going directly where you need to on Facebook, you prevent getting distracted and wasting time.
How I do this: I use Todoist for my to-do list making, so I save all of my direct links there as tasks. That way, if there’s an important thread happening, I can easily reference it. Bloggers, this is a great way to keep track of support and chore threads!
2. Add most visited groups to your favorites
On the left side of your Facebook homepage, there is a section labeled “Favorites”. You can add pages and groups you visit often to this section. This makes it easier to get away from your news feed, where you could probably waste a lot of time!
To add a group to this list, view your Facebook group memberships page. From there, you can choose “Add to Favorites” for your most visited groups. You can rearrange these to whatever order works best for you. My Favorites has my pages first (that I admin) followed by the top 5 or 10 groups that I’m involved in.
3. Hide pages that aren’t important
As bloggers, we like to support brands and other bloggers by liking them on social media. That can mean a very cluttered news feed on Facebook. It may cost you several minutes of scrolling through unwanted stuff if you have many pages liked.
To hide ones that post a ton of updates or statuses that aren’t really important to you, you have two options. When you see an update come through, you can click the down arrow in the top right corner, which will give you the option to “Unfollow Page”. You will still be liking it, you just won’t see it in your feed.
You can also visit the Facebook page and click “Following” to the right of the page’s profile picture. This will cause the checkmark to go away and the button will change to “Follow”. To see updates again, click “Follow” and they will come back.
4. Schedule your Facebook time
Giving yourself a set time to browse and enjoy Facebook can keep you from becoming lost in it. Figure this in around the other work you have to do each day, so that everything gets done and you still get your social media fix! If you use Facebook heavily for blog purposes, like curating content for social sharing, or you are an admin of a group, schedule time for specific tasks to keep you on top of things. Ignore notifications, turn off the chat function and focus!
5. Turn off notifications to devices
Even if you have Facebook closed on your computer, it can be tempting to check your page each time you get a new notification on your phone or tablet. Turn off these notifications so you aren’t distracted. You’ll still get the notifications when you return to Facebook, so you won’t miss out on anything.
My note: I turned off mobile notifications for Facebook. It has been life-changing. I am not constantly looking at my phone’s screen to see new notifications and I’m able to focus on things better.