How To Not Let Technology Consume Your Time

I'm going to preface this by saying I'm not perfect at what I want to share with you today. I simply am trying to find a good balance with what my job requires and letting it take over.

Technology is a huge part of the photographer's life. We use our computers to edit and check email and blog and work on our website updating our portfolio. Maybe we're engaging on Facebook and Instagram. This is all very good for our business and getting our name out there but it is so easy to get sucked in. The question becomes, "how to utilize the tools we have available without letting them consume us?". I'm going to share with you a few things I've done and I hope you'll share your own tips with me!

I created my Instagram account in the summer of 2017. For the first long while, I only got on once a day, in the morning, to post and look at other things, then I was done for the day. I told my friends about my goal so they could keep me accountable. I did NOT want this new tool for my business to become an addiction.

When I got my new device, and Stories actually worked, I started going on a bit more often because I could post updates to my Stories. But I tried to still only scroll through a couple of times a day.

Lately, my plan has been to go one about 9 am, again around lunch time, and then, in theory, once more in the evening. But I think I was going on more than that in the afternoon and evening. So I came up with a 4-time-a-day schedule.

The "goal" times are 9 am, 12 pm, 3 pm, and 6 pm. This lets me keep on top of messages and posts from my engagement group (we all like and comment each others' posts to help beat the algorithm). It also gives me frequent times to post to Stories so I can stay off easier in the between times.

Email is another beast. Since I've had a laptop, I've had my personal email as my home page on my browser. My laptop is open all day and that screen is the one that stays up. Consequently, I always know as soon as I have a new email. This has been the way I've done email as long as I've had my own. As I've added more address, I would just constantly check them to see if I had a new message. I think there is probably an unaddressed problem there, but I'm not sure what it is and that's not the point now.

I've gotten tired of my "obsession" with email and want to limit that as well. I think I sort of became addicted to it but didn't realize because I didn't think of it as something one could get addicted to. My email routine follows my Instagram routine. Four times a day I specifically go on to answer emails and work in my inbox. I'm also trying to establish "working hours" for my business. Someday, God willing, I will have a family and I don't want to set expectations now as a single person that will be a burden to spending time with them. I'm trying to set up my work now thinking of the future. That's partly why my Sundays are the way they are.

I take a semi tech sabbath on Sundays. I am off email, texting, and Instagram. If there is a time sensitive matter, of course I'll send off a text or respond to an email, but that rarely happens. Most everything can wait until Monday morning. This is a practice I adopted after reading Jefferson Bethke's book "It's Not What You Think". Again, I want to start habits and practices now that will be accepted as normal when I have my own family and home. My friends accepted that I was unavailable on Sundays very quickly and, interestingly enough, I often had ZERO texts to catch up on in our group chat on Monday. Sometimes habits are catching. 

This is what has worked and is working for me. As you can see, it has changed over time as my needs have changed. I'm sure they'll change again. I also am not rigid to these schedules. I am more committed to the schedule of posting on Instagram Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday than I am to my time slots. If I won't be able to post at 9 am, I'll go on earlier. One thing I actively guard against is my self-imposed rules and regulations becoming rigid and legalistic. When a rule becomes legalism, it no longer serves its purpose.

Over the week of Christmas, I was basically never on Instagram. I had so much going on and I was spending time with people. You know what? I was fine. I missed it a little bit, but it wasn't pulling at me. That made me glad because I knew that my attempts were working. Instagram was not controlling my life. Good to know.

How do you regulate technology in your life? What things have worked for you and what things didn't work? I'd love to hear your experiences!