In order to be healthy, you must feed your body healthy foods. Let’s think of “information” as food for your brain.
An athlete knows that to be successful they must feed their body healthy and nutritious foods. By doing this – along with exercise and proper training – an athlete will be able to compete at the top of their game.
Look at your productivity as if you were an athlete. In order to be a successful student, entrepreneur, writer, whatever…you must feed your body the proper information.
Everyday we’re bombarded with all types of information – Facebook status updates, YouTube clips, class lectures, TV advertisements, – all these sources are part of our lives, but we have the power to choose what we consume.
Just like the athlete, we must choose to consume information that is healthy, natural, proportionate, and dense:
- Healthy Information – Information that is good for your brain. Examples include lecture notes, textbooks, and helpful advice. Unhealthy info refers to the abundance of garbage we must process on Facebook, twitter and TV.
- Natural Information – Information that comes directly from the source, such as a trusted websites or definitions from the class textbook. Using Urban Dictionary to define terms is not a smart idea.
- Proportionate – Just as an athlete consumes a proper caloric amount to excel, the amount of information you choose to process should be proportionate. Make en effort to process information in small amounts allowing time for you brain to soak up the data. “Cramming” tons of info before an exam should only be used in dire situations.
- Dense – Athletes eat foods that are nutritionally dense, meaning they consume as little calories as possible while maximizing the nutritious value of their food. The same goes for your brain. Taking long detailed notes will leave you exhausted after a study session. Instead, condense your notes to only the information you are unsure of. This will help your brain remember only the important things.
The Challenge
For the next 7 days, I will be using a program called LeechBlock to prevent me from accessing Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube on my computer. I will use Twitter at work to promote this article, but I will not be reading tweets or mentions.
My Facebook picture and status update will be this message:
“I will be unavailable via Facebook until April 5th. Visit www.CampusByte.com to find out why.”
(Click here to get the photo)
Why?
Everyday when I wake up, the first thing I do is check twitter for new blog posts or interesting tweets. I usually get side tracked and end up looking at what’s topping digg.com since I follow digg on twitter.
Next, I check Facebook for messages from group members for school projects. Ten minutes later I’m looking at spring break pictures from some girl I don’t even know.
This is all before I eat breakfast.
If you’re tired of consuming “garbage” and want to make a huge change in your productivity level, I challenge you to join me in 7 days of no social media.
You might need to alter the rules to fit your addictions, but try to eliminate the worst time consumers and the sites that feed you “garbage” information.
Can we improve our productivity by completely removing these sites from our lives? I guess we’ll find out in 7 days. Let me know if you’re with me in the comments below.
12 Comments
Good luck, sir. I feel lucky not being a big Facebook or YouTube user. I do a lot with Twitter, as it’s a major working tool for me. As a working tool, I don’t find Twitter a hindrance and I try to keep time on it down through filters and the like.
But an information diet, or social media fast, is a good way to find out what you *really* miss during the exercise. After the 7 days are up, I hope you use the experience to cut down on the less important aspects of social media. It’s unwise to leave it altogether for good, but sometimes a brief hiatus helps your focus to return.
As for the next 7 days, here’s to a huge chunk of your time back. I’m sure you’ll get a LOT done in this time! :)
Thanks Martin. You’re right. Leaving these altogether for good would be unwise (I know some twitter followers that might be mad) But by the end of this thing I hope to see what areas of social media I can cut of our my life and which ones I absolutely need.
As far as productivity goes, I’ve realized “I have all this time!” – Getting a lot done already.
Thanks for your comment.
I’m in!
It’s easy to find yourself wandering facebook with no direction or purpose. Hopefully in these 7 days I can reflect on what is important and decide where I want to go with my free time.
Sounds great Spencer. Thanks for the comment!
It’s amazing to me how much of people’s live’s (including my own) are consumed by this junk information.
I really like the idea of this challenge, and would love to try it myself. I’m not sure if I could completely cut everything out, but I’m doing my best to cut back for sure.
Thanks for the inspiration, and good luck with the challenge!
Hey Dan,
Good to hear you’re up for the challenge. I’m wishing I still had access to twitter right now. One day down and I’m already starting to see how much twitter helps connect with other bloggers. Oh well, I’m sticking to my word.
Thanks for the kind words. Always enjoy your comments.
I’m doing the challenge, and I’m definitely getting more productive things done!! It’s kind of nice not knowing what everyone else is doing all of the time :)
Hey MB,
Good to hear you’re on for the ride! I’ve already learned a lot about myself and my business.
Good luck, stay strong!
that’s a great idea :)
i am sure you will save a looooooooot of time
my problem is that i depend heavily on facebook for marketing my website and so its almost impossible not to access it for few days
Hey Farouk,
Interestingly enough, I’m starting to realize how I took my “facebook” time for granted. It has also shown me that there are other ways to manage social media without actually being on them.
Thanks for the comment!
I don’t know if I could take on this 7 day challenge. I do however manage how I consume content. For example, I Twitter, I have a “News & Resources” list. It’s a private list that I access every morning and throughout the day from various sources on the web. Sometimes I’ll read the article, other times I won’t. But I access the information to stay on top of what’s happening and I consume this bit before reading through the general time-line.
On another note, I’m on a “Book A Week Challenge.” I’m on a mission to read a book a week for the year. So far, I think I’m behind a book or two… But I am reading three books right now :-)
Ricardo,
The challenge was hard but I see it as detox for my brain. I just starting using Twitter lists and through this challenge I learned who and what to follow.
A book a week! That’s awesome. Being a student, I have enough reading for school haha, so I usually stick to one book a month.
Thanks for the comment.
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