Recently I realized that Facebook had been taking up way more of my time than I was comfortable with. There were other things in life that I wanted to apply myself to, but wasn’t making the commitment because of time wasted on Facebook.
Click here to read why I decided to take a week-long break from Facebook, and why you should consider doing the same.
So after my break from Facebook, I wanted to share with you some of the things I did instead. Of course, I could have accomplished many of these things while still using Facebook, but the amazing thing to me is that I accomplished them all in one week.
As you are reading this, ask yourself what you could accomplish in a week if you didn’t get on Facebook at all? Let me know in the comments below this post!
14 Things I Did Without Facebook
1. Cleaned and Organized My Bookshelves – I walk by my messy bookshelves every day, but somehow I always seem to have more “important” things to do on Facebook than straighten up the forgotten places of my house. This week, I got it done with ease.
2. Wrote Love Notes to My Husband – Without the distraction of Facebook, I wrote more love notes to my husband so that he could read them at work. He said they made his day!
3. Read to My Kids – I had gotten in a really bad habit of sitting on Facebook in the evenings when I should have been spending time with my kids. Without it I as able to take the time to read chapter books with my oldest 2 boys and read our favorite kid classics with my younger 2 before bed.
4. Caught Up On Laundry – Most of my good friends know that I hate folding laundry. Too often my family is required to dig through a basket of clean clothes to find their clothes for the day. It’s something I want to get better at, so this week I was able to focus on catching up and actually folding the laundry (and even putting some of it away!)
5. Colored a Picture – Every evening, after tucking my littlest guy (almost 2 years old) into his new big boy bed, I sit at the dining room table where he can see me until he falls asleep. Instead of getting on Facebook on my phone, this past week I have been coloring in my children’s coloring books, and was inspired to bring the colors downstairs that evening and have a fun coloring session with the older 2 boys. They very much appreciated the gesture.
6. Read Magazines – Every month I get a few carefully selected magazines in the mail (namely O Magazine and Psychology Today). I always promise myself I am going to read the interesting articles, but never quite get around to doing it. Without facebook, I was able to read the articles right away, from start to finish.
7. Played the Sims 3 – Yes, even without Facebook I found ways to goof off and waste some time with my favorite computer game. My next plan is to start setting a time limit for myself.
8. Got My Ebook Ready – During my break from Facebook, I found out that my ebook Kids Eat Real Food has been accepted and will be included in this year’s Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle sale. I spent time getting it ready so that it can be converted to a Kindle version. Stay tuned for the bundle sale this fall!
9. Baked Cookies – Me and cookies have a strange relationship. I love baking, but with little kids I have always complained that cookies take too much “babysitting”, especially since I always make a double batch which means some extra time in the kitchen trying to take the cookies out of the oven at the perfect time. This week it was no problem, and I have vowed to bake cookies more often. Plus, I bake some mean cookies (if I do say so myself).
10. Made a Menu Plan – Menu plans are the first line of defense in my house from the temptation of eating unhealthy junk foods, but I’m not always that great at implementing it lately. This week I created a simple and frugal meal plan for the upcoming week.
11. Re-evaluated our Budget – This year has been incredibly busy so far with household projects and family fun, hardly the time to be lax on the budget, but we have been letting things slide a bit more than we should and spending more money than we should. A week off of Facebook gave me the time to look at our budget and see where we need to cut back.
12. Cooked More Real Food – Along with making a meal plan, I had more time to cook real, healthy foods this week. I even did some extra real food prep, including washing and chopping fresh seasonal fruit to store in the freezer.
13. Read My Bible and Prayed – With a clear mind and less distraction, I was able to devote more time to reading my bible and praying for friends, family members, and people around the world. I also felt more compelled to pray with my children and discuss our faith.
14. Finished a Book Review – I was able to finish reading We the Eaters and post my review a bit quicker than I had originally planned.
Things I Missed About Facebook and What I Learned
Of course, there were some things I missed about Facebook. I missed the connection that Facebook provides me with other bloggers. It’s not that I can’t make that connection in other places, but I am part of a large blogger’s group on Facebook that makes it super easy to make those valuable connections.
I also missed my online friends. As someone who lives a very alternative lifestyle compared to many of those in my local community, I find it extremely helpful to connect and find support from like-minded individuals online. For instance, I belong to (and help admin) a large Christian Unschooling group where I can ask questions and discuss topics pertaining to our unconventional educational choices. I also belong to a small group of Christians from all over the country that is amazingly supportive, and greatly devoted to praying for any need a member might have, as well as supporting each other financially in times of need.
Outside of my Facebook groups, I missed being able to catch up on the lives of my friends via their Facebook walls, and also to update my friends on the happenings in my life. I intentionally keep my friends list to a minimum, and have an even smaller subsection of “close friends” in which I share more personal things with. I am very candid with those I trust, and have been blessed to share some of our personal life struggles with others.
What did I learn? I learned that I don’t want to give up Facebook completely. I don’t want to let go of all of the people in my life, even the ones that I do not get to see in person that often (if ever). Those people that I have connected with online are a part of my life, some in small ways, some in bigger ways.
But I also learned that Facebook can become a time suck. It has the potential to occupy my mind for hours without letting me accomplish anything worthwhile. It can become a habit that is hard to break. It can become something I rely on in place of my creator, and something I spend time on in place of my family. The most important thing I learned from all of this is to make my time on Facebook a conscious act, and turn it off when I have completed what I have set out to do; to not let the Facebook “newsfeed” become a drip feed for my entertainment and the occupying of my mind and past times.
Discussion Question:
Have you ever taken a break from Facebook? What is the most valuable thing you learned during that time-off?
Vanessa integrates EMDR, sandtray, and attachment-focused approaches in her work and is completing credentials toward Registered Play Therapist and EMDRIA certification. With a background as a certified birth doula and a passion for making healing accessible, she writes and teaches on the intersection of trauma, neurodevelopment, and story-based therapy.
Good job. 😉 I probably should do this as well… :p
It’s about how you use it and I have had extended periods without it and deactivated it twice. I have been in places with no wi-fi, so I learned not to have it and got used to it.
I like to have it to keep in contact with friends in different time zones and is great for family photos without having to clog up the inbox. Though some friends expect me to be on 24/7, I have also switched off my phone, so I can concentrate on my book and studies.
Like email it can be a distraction, so I check my email and facebook every couple of hours when I take a break and try no to detract by hiding the window.
Facebook can really consume time. I try to avoid it on weekdays because I need to finish a lot of things. I only use facebook when I have a lot of free time in a day.
I need to cut back on Facebook as well. Goodness knows that I have a lot of incomplete projects around the house that I could easily finish if I weren’t so distracted by the social media sites. I like the idea of carving out a specific time to check emails and check in on Facebook. I’m going to give it a try.
Your original post actually inspired me to cut back my time on Facebook this past week! Because of this, I tackled two projects that I had put off for months: re-writing my food philsophy page + creating a graphic for it, and cleaning out my bedroom closet so I could donate A LOT of clothes that I’d been hoarding for years. I also spent the past week reading, exercising, and soaking in the sun more than usual.
Vanessa, THANK YOU SO MUCH for writing that post! (And updating us, as well.)
That’s awesome Elaina, and thanks so much for telling me about your experience. I have definitely been working on cutting back my Facebook time for good and plan on taking more complete breaks again the the future.
Great job! I am not on Facebook that much, but when I do get on there, I get distracted easily. I notice when I stay off of Facebook, I myself get a lot more done. Especially with my writing. Since being online and writing can make it far too easy to hop on over to sites like Facebook.
That’s incredible! Maybe if I deleted mine I would be able to focus on studying LOL! I think its a great way to connect with the world you live in and really connect with yourself as well. But one you have a Facebook its hard to go without it because it really connects you to the outside world and to people you may not see every day. What a great experiment but I don’t think I would want to try it permanently.
This post is very inspiring. I resisted facebook for a years, and actually only became a consistent user once my kids were born. It’s such a nice way to share about them with our friends and family who are in other countries (of whom there are many, including my husband’s entire family). However, I have noticed now with my smart phone it is too easy to spend A LOT of time on facebook. It’s something I have wanted to cut back on, but have difficulty. I think I need to try again, and by turning off my wireless and data and only allowing my phone to serve the purpose of a phone, I think this might be easier. I definitely want to spend more quality time with my kids in the evenings, and the house could always use some cleaning…
Number 2, 3, 8 and 13 brought huge smiles to my face. I admire this a lot. I struggle with overusing Facebook all of the time. I use it almost like a lifeline. The funny thing is that when I don’t use it, it’s almost like people get concerned that something is wrong with me. I think that spending time doing some of those things you listed above, especially the reading the bible more! I’m going to be taking this article under very serious consideration, less facebook make be in my future.
well I still found myself online. Only this time it was about me finding work online and boy did I found them. Sure a lot of them have fees when I looked up at google search engine. however I sign-up on mostly the ones where I did not have to pay anything. But anyways the truth is I’m always taking a break from facebook and other social sites how? well I by just doing my hobbies. That includes sewing, story writing, reading books, upcycling and painting and photography. Let me just say kudos to you This is something we should try every now and then I do very much love when we are not addicted to social media.
A couple of years ago I gave up Facebook for lent. The fact that it was the thing that occurred to me to do without shows what an oversized place it had taken in my life. Like with all Lenten fasts, I went back to it, but with much less attachment.
I have many friends who have moved away and Facebook lets me feel like I am still involved in their lives. Also, I love the instant gratification of posting a picture of something my family is doing and watch the “likes” come streaming in. But I don’t sit in front of it and let it consume my evenings anymore.
I think the best thing about your post is you show how valuable the things you put back in your life when you took Facebook out. That is pretty cool.
Facebook is really addictive, its not just about seeing all your friends at the same time, its also a place where you store your memories and it stays there almost forever or as long as facebook.com stays online. Last November I gave up facebook totally. Except for my profile pic and a few details, I have ceased the act of updating it. It’s still there and when a friend makes me aware of something important or if someone was about to contact me, only then would I log into it. I realized this the hard way, when my relationship with a loved one was put to the test. Never again. No more facebook for me. I think we can appreciate our friends and family more without facebook. I know it’s important to stay in touch, but sometimes it seems everybody is in each others face and the pics and updates are all about competition. Fun fact – now everyone wants to know where I am or what I am doing, cos I am a mystery, I am not on facebook.
This is such a great idea! Just this week I started limiting my Facebook time to once a day – and I actually realized that once a day I only spend a few minutes before getting sick of it and closing it, and some days I completely forget to even check my once a day.
It sounds like the break did you the world of good – gosh, when was the last time I took the time to make cookies? And I’m envious that you got to tidy up your bookcases and catch up on your laundry – two things I really need to do.
But it’s good to see that your break wasn’t all about what you got to do in place of FB time, it was also a good time to evaluate what you actually get from it, and how you like to have it in your life without it overlapping with too many other things. I get that. I take regular breaks from both FB and Twitter, and although I’m glad of the time to do other things, I’m always happy to get back to it for a while too.
Thanks for updating us – I wondered how you would get along 😉
I use Facebook to network with other businesses similar to mine, as well as to connect with friends who don’t live in my area. It seems that everytime I turn on my computer I have five or six new messages. I have a ton of things to do around my house that I probably could accomplish if I gave up Facebook for a few days. I have a basement to clean, extra laundry to do, and a novel to finish. I plan to give up all of my social networking for a few weeks to see if social networking is an excuse that I use to procrastinate.
I completely got rid of facebook a while back, and I am really happy I did. It was really starting to get to me how mean people are to each other. How much drama they think it’s appropriate to share with others. How close-minded and nasty people can get!
I just deleted it all and haven’t looked back. I do miss seeing new baby pictures and stuff like that, but I lived before facebook was even a thing. I’ll be just fine 🙂
I am very happy for you. I wish that I could take a week off completely. My work is online and I am the sole breadwinner for my family. At this stage I am not able to take off any time. However, I will get there and I will switch everything off for a whole week where I will do different activities. I will not go online at all. Just one week will give me the best break of all!