One of the most important things you can do for your overall health, wellness & sanity is unsubscribe, unfollow, unfriend un-listen, remove & close out all of the tabs. I noticed one day that I had like 40 tabs open on my internet browser, was listening to a podcast in the background, had a desk full of notes, lists, magazines, books to read, etc. and had my phone open to my instagram account. Holy cow, no wonder I had a headache and was having a hard time focusing.
I tend to jot down a note if there is something I want to research or read about a little bit more later…I’ll discover something interesting on the internet and leave the website open thinking I’ll have time to dive in later or read it in depth tomorrow…I’ll follow instagram accounts without really thinking about if they are a good fit for how I want to feel.
So this weekend, I closed all of the tabs. I figured if it wasn’t important enough for me to dive into at the time, it wasn’t anymore important 10 days later. I started fresh with a new browser tab (now I only have 5 websites open – google analytics, gmail, my budget spreadsheet, Tracy Anderson youtube workout video and a NYTimes article I want to read). Huge relief.
I then removed the majority of the blogs I follow on my bloglovin account. I left 10 of the most inspirational ones & I’ll check in and read them once or twice a week.
I then blocked my personal facebook feed – I can’t delete my personal facebook account (unfortunately) because I need a personal one to have a business one but google chrome makes an extension that will block your personal feed online. I can still post to my business pages and I can still go directly to any of the facebook groups that I like being a part of. And I removed facebook from my phone all together.
Next, I removed about half of the people I follow on instagram (no offense, if you were one of them). I kept the ones that continually inspire me, and don’t make me feel bad or guilty. ☺ You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? I think #unfollowfriday should be a real thing.
The final thing I did was to take my inbox to almost ZERO. There are still 10 emails in there (in progress items), but everything else I either dealt with or deleted. Boom.
So my advice is to narrow down your “noise” to the few people, accounts, inspiration sources that truly and deeply align with who you are and where you want to go. And close or remove the rest. Close All The Tabs and start fresh.
Here are several additional things you can do to eliminate the distractions & noise from your life.
• For the love of God, turn off all notifications (including social media notifications). No one needs to get dinged when someone posts a new picture or when a new text message comes in. Just turn it off.
• Surround yourself with people who lift you up. We are the sum of those 5 people who we surround ourselves with and spend the most time with. Think carefully about who that is for you.
• Only respond to emails and post/engage on social media at specific times during the day (don’t keep those channels open 24/7).
• Remove any and all streams of negativity (people, social media accounts followers, etc.) I am continually appalled at how many people never learned “If you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all.”
• Narrow down your life + business to the most important things and set up systems to help you make time for what matters most.
• Unsubscribe from newsletters and stop following social media pages that distract or don’t directly ADD to your life.
• Watch less TV, spend less time at the computer, and turn off your phone more. Get outside and spend time with people instead. Real people. Check out #lessmediamoresocial for more inspiration on this movement to put down the phone & connect with people in real life.
• Find someone who can hold you accountable. Share your goals and dreams with others and let them cheer you on. I have 2 friends who I check in with weekly on my goals.
• Write it all down. Don’t try to keep everything in your head. It will only distract you. Try to keep it all in one place.
• Say no to lots of things. Collaborations, commitments, or anything that doesn’t add to your life, family and business goals.
• Write down the most important things for you to do and do them first.
