Tor Refsland
You want to build your online profile, right?
Because you KNOW that you need to be present on social media in order to do so.
The only problem is that whenever you log on to your social media accounts…
you BLACKOUT.
When you wake up a lot of time has passed, but you CAN`T remember WHAT you spent the time on.
Does that sound familiar? No worries, I got your back.
Let me show you the 4 things you need to stop doing if you want to become productive on social media.
1. Stop playing around
Few activities are offering so many distractions as the vast sea of social media information. You can easily lose track of time and spend hours just consuming information that other people are continuously pumping out.
The fine line between serious work and just playing around, can easily be trespassed. That is why it`s important to separate play from work.
A few examples of playing around on social media:
- Poking an old class mate on Facebook (just to see if he/she will poke you back)
- Checking out your neighbour’s Facebook updates to see if they have got a new dog
- Looking at your colleague’s Instagram profile to see their vacation photos
- Glancing at your favourite NHL team’s Twitter profile
- Checking the Facebook photos of your childhood girlfriend/boyfriend to see if she/he has gained a lot of weight
If you treat social media like a hobby, guess what will happen?
You will get the same results like it were your hobby.
Successful serial entrepreneur, Twitter influencer and ambassador for ZipKick, Scott Eddy, says that few people are willing to put in the sweat equity in order to build their presence on social media. His 665,000 followers on Twitter is a testimony that he knows what he is talking about.
As Brian Tracy says, work time is not play time, it`s work time.
Don`t get me wrong, of course you can have fun while doing your social media work. That being said, it’s IMPORTANT that you treat your social media activities like important business activities.
Imagine that you were hiring yourself to do your own social media activities. Would you really want to pay yourself for just playing around in your work time?
Nope, you wouldn’t!
Once you start taking social media seriously and you put in the a required amount of work, you will get…
…serious results.
2. Stop being available 24/7
The best way to cripple your productivity on social media is to be available 24/7.
If you don’t disconnect, you are heading towards the following pitfalls:
- your productivity will decrease
- you will never be able to completely relax and rejuvenate
- you are constantly stressed out because you get a gazillion of push notifications on your cell phone
- you are exhausted because you are not able to instantly respond to everyone
- you are sleeping bad
- you are on the highway towards BURNOUT city in rapid speed
Why do you have your cell phone online 24/7?
Because you don`t want to miss any important updates?
Let me bring you a few BRUTAL facts.
Brutal fact #1: You will MISS updates. You might trick yourself to believing that you won’t since you are online 24/7, but again – you WILL.
Why? Because the huge volume of social media updates makes it impossible for any human being to constantly be updated.
Brutal fact #2: There is little information on social media that is of such high importance that you NEED to respond immediately. In other words, using tools to follow certain influencers or groups and checking your updates a few times a day will do the trick.
If you want to avoid the consequences above, I would strongly advice you to take your cell phone offline (yes, you read correct). ONLY go online if there`s a specific important task that you absolutely need to do on your cell phone.
If you haven’t tried it before, I can guarantee that you are in for a treat. I know it can be hard, but you can do it.
3. Stop working without a plan
They say that if you don’t plan, you plan to fail.
If you aren’t planning, your day is becoming a victim of random events and you are basically just responding to other people’s needs. In addition, you start your day by NOT KNOWING what to do, instead of working with your most income generating tasks.
You should use ONE to do list that is called the master to do list. This to do list contains all the tasks that need to be done. If a task isn’t on the master to do list, it won’t get done.
Prioritize your tasks using the ABCDE method:
- A task: task you must do – serious consequences if it doesn’t get done
- B task: task you should do – mild consequences if it doesn’t get done
- C task: tasks you could do – no consequences if it doesn’t get done
- D task: tasks you delegate
- E task: tasks you never do
Here is a secret ingredient: you never do a B task before you have done all the A tasks, and you never do a C task before you have done all the B tasks.
Apply the 80/20 rule to identify your most important tasks. Pareto’s law says that 20% of your most important tasks will result in 80% of the total production value.
What does this mean?
It means that if you have a to do list with 10 social media tasks, 2 of the most important tasks will result in 80 % of the results.
So if you are able to constantly IDENTIFY and prioritize your most important social media tasks, you will have become very productive.
And the most important thing?
Once you have created a plan for your social media activities and put it into your schedule, for the love of your own productivity STICK WITH THE PLAN.
4. Stop multitasking
I don’t care how good you are at multitasking. You might be the multitasking master at your company. Perhaps people even have suggested that you should join the national TV-show like “America`s Got Talent” to display your multitasking skills.
Regardless of your belief, studies have shown that multitasking is NOT making you more productive. Focusing on one single task at a time until the work is completed, is still the undefeated champion.
Take a look at the picture below.
I’m trying to do the following activities at the same time:
- Write the blog post for Jeff
- Check my Facebook page
- Tweet to Jeff
- Google good places to eat
- Feed my newborn baby daughter, Luna
- Talk to my imaginary cat
You get the picture. Not very productive at all. So since, I was only able to do ONE task, I focused on the single most important task: to write the blog post for Jeff.
Notice: Obviously feeding my newborn daughter is the most important task. However, that job was outsourced to my better half, Sara.
If you are going to do specific tasks on social media, only do THOSE tasks (one at a time).
Example for Twitter activities:
1. Follow people who are following you
2. Unfollow people who haven’t followed you within 7 days
3. Follow people within your target niche
So how do you work through the tasks above?
You start with your first task and work on that task until it`s done. Then you do the same with the second and third task.
Learning how to focus on one single task until it’s done can skyrocket your productivity on social media.
What to do next…
You now have the recipe for becoming more productive on social media.
However, any recipe is useless, unless you actually APPLY the knowledge.
If you are doing all of the things above, don’t fret.
Baby steps. Just pick ONE activity that you will STOP doing.
What is your experience with wasting time on social media?
If you do any time wasting activities that aren`t listed here, feel free to share.
Digital & Social Articles on Business 2 Community(133)
