A few days ago I did something transformational for my business and my headspace: I deleted all of my Facebook pages. Not because I was addicted or wasted too much time scrolling through updates, but because I have always, always had an uneasy and half-assed relationship with the platform and decided it was time to stop half-assing it.
So I deleted all of my profiles. And now I don’t have that ever-nagging feeling that I should be engaging and targeting and participating in conversations that I never really engaged in or targeted or participated in before.
And I can say without exaggeration that it has been a massive load off. Because I no longer need to agonize about what I am not doing on Facebook and can focus fully instead on what I want to be doing and am doing everywhere else. Small change, big impact.
And the reason I share this with you is because we all have so much noise coming at us all day long: emails, WhatsApp, Slack groups, phone alerts, social media in all its stripes, and we can go crazy trying to be all the places all the time and do all the things.
But you don’t have to. Of course you don’t. You are the boss (or, as my daughter would say, you are the “birthday decider”… even when it’s not your birthday!). These small distractions and tensions add up. And they can exhaust you just by thinking about them.
So leave that frivolous WhatsApp group, unsubscribe from that email (and that goes for my emails too if you think they are “noise”… I won’t be offended), leave that Slack channel, delete your Twitter account – or whatever it is you are half-assing – and remove the distraction and stress and the constant feeling that you are falling behind or missing out or missing a trick.
Like I said, you are the birthday decider. And if there is too much noise in your life, give yourself a true gift and cut some of it out.
