There is nearly nothing I hate more than opening Twitter or Instagram and seeing an endless stream of new content and feeling completely overwhelmed. Far too often I found myself scrolling for a ridiculous amount of time through content I didn’t even like too much; it was draining instead of inspiring and I knew that I needed to make a change.
I’ve been doing a bunch of research about minimalism and have to say that I love its ideals and principles (and how you can customize the extent you want to go so that you can create the perfect, simple lifestyle). I decided to embrace minimalism and the first place I began was with social media.
Luckily I didn’t have an insurmountable amount of people I was following, but I had some serious work to do to get to a better place with my social media. My goal was to follow no more than 50 accounts on Twitter and Bloglovin’ and no more than 100 on Instagram and Pinterest (check out how I organize my Pinterst account here and how I purge my blogroll here). I chose these numbers because I can view images more quickly than I can digest words (hence, follow more on image driven sites and less on predominately text platforms).
Here is the process and criteria I used to become a social media minimalist:
- Start by unfollowing anyone who hasn’t posted in a long time (like, it’s been months since he or she has put up anything)
- Then unfollow anyone who posts anything you aren’t particularly fond of (pro tip: don’t be afraid to unfollow people you know; they probably won’t even notice)
- Critically look through your remaining list and only continue to follow those whose content inspires you or makes you smile or causes you to think. When you log onto any platform you should be excited by everything you see and eager to learn more.
- Remember that you can alway re-follow if you miss seeing posts by a particular account, but my guess is that in a few days you won’t realize that you haven’t been getting their updates
This can be a lengthy process, but it is so worth it. Since cutting down my list I have spent less mindless time on social media, been rejuvenated instead of drained after logging on, and have completely avoided that icky, overwhelmed feeling of the past.
Do you embrace minimalism with your social media? What criteria do you use before deciding to click the follow button?
I would love to read more about how you are incorporating minimalism into your life.
This is really helpful, thank you for sharing. I completely understand that icky overwhelming feeling you get with social media, and I want to stop feeling like that everytime I browse through my timelines.
I'll be using your tips this week to see how it turns out!
PS: I'd love yo read more minimalistic tips from you!
B.