Hey everyone!
Welcome back to Lavendaire.
It's Aileen.
This week I'm going to do a social media detox.
I'm going to quit using social media for five days and vlog the journey,
see how I feel, see how it benefits me or changes me.
I already know I'm going to be more productive,
just by trying to do this challenge, but we're going to see what happens.
So the reason I wanted to do this challenge was because I noticed myself getting so distracted
and spending so much time on my phone, on social media.
I'll tell myself, "Oh, I'm just going to check my messages on Instagram, check Twitter for a bit,"
and I get lost in the rabbit hole for 30 minutes to an hour, or more.
And it's just wasting so much time.
Also, I notice that when I spend so much time on social media,
I start to compare myself to other people, what I see other people doing,
and it makes me feel more insecure.
It makes me wonder, "Hm, am I doing enough?"
It's just not good for my mental health.
Did you know the average American spends 4.7 hours on their phone every day?
That's a lot of hours.
And this is from an article I found from 2015, so I bet in 2018 it might be even worse.
I've actually used a couple of apps to track the time that I spend on my phone.
One that I used to use is called Moment, and one that I'm using now is called Space.
Last week, I spent the most time on my phone on Friday,
with a whopping five and a half hours on my phone.
And the shortest time that I spent on my phone was on Wednesday
where I spent 1.4 hours on my phone.
You can also see how many times I picked up my phone to unlock it.
The most times I picked up my phone was 53 times on Thursday and 23 times on Saturday.
It's nice that I have that app so I can track how many times I pick up my phone
and how long I'm spending on my phone.
I'm actually just trying to decrease the amount of hours I spend looking at my phone each day.
So for this social media detox, I'm going to set some rules for myself.
And you can follow these rules or create your own rules because obviously,
I've catered my rules to me and what I need to do for my job as well.
My rules are:
#1: I cannot use my phone immediately upon waking.
And the only exception is to use my phone only to play music.
I tend to check YouTube or Instagram when I'm awake,
just because reading comments and things like that will wake me up.
But I realize that that's a very distracting way to start my day,
so another way that I like to wake up is to play music.
Because the music energizes my body.
So that's the only exception where I can use my phone.
Rule #2 is that I can only check my email on my phone once a day.
And after looking at my phone once a day, if there are other emails that I need to reply to
and do work with, I'll do all of that on the desktop.
That way, I get less distracted.
Rule #3 is I'm going to delete every social media app I have on my phone,
except for Instagram and I'll tell you why.
So I'm going to delete Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, anything else that I might have.
But I want to keep Instagram because that's the only way that I could post photos on Instagram,
since it's still part of my job to post photos consistently.
I'm only allowed to use Instagram for posting and, if on a day I post,
I'm allowed to check it once more just to reply to comments on the photo.
For the other social media apps like YouTube, Facebook, that I also have to use for work,
I'm only allowed to do my work on the desktop.
Only allowed to post YouTube videos, reply to comments,
and manage my Facebook groups on my desktop, but not on my phone.
Are you ready?
Let's start.
Alright, first things first, I'm going to delete the social media apps I have on my phone,
excluding Instagram because I need that app to post.
Here's my phone.
I have a social media apps folder, which I'm going to start deleting these apps now.
Alright, switching to the vlog cam now.
So I've just deleted all my apps, and this morning I did not wake up to social media.
And I already feel much more productive
because immediately I just got to work on preparing my next three videos.
Right now, I'm going to post on Instagram since I have all these scheduled posts.
And I'm actually going to make the post where I'm announcing my social media detox week.
And after I'm done posting, I'm going to get off of Instagram and not check anything.
So I just went to eat dinner with a friend, and the difference that I noticed was that,
when there was a wait for the restaurant, I couldn't use my phone to check social media.
Or the time that my friend went to the restroom
and I was sitting at the table, I did not check anything on my phone.
I mean, the one thing that I thought of, to do, is to go through my photos
and delete photos and videos that I needed to delete.
So that was my way to distract myself while waiting for my friend.
Now I'm going to go home and reply to my comments on my Instagram post,
reply to any messages that I received.
And I won't browse any social media.
It's been interesting to not have contact with the outside world today,
through social media, which is how I normally feel.
I've just been in my own world today.
I encountered a little issue.
So I wanted to share this Facebook event for the workbook launch party
on Instagram Stories to get RSVPs and interest.
And because I deleted the Facebook app, I couldn't really screenshot it using my phone,
which is what I would normally do.
So what I did was I screenshotted it on the desktop and airdropped that photo to my phone.
Just a little extra step.
Actually, I should just take this moment to announce that
I'm going to throw my first Lavendaire event,
celebrating the launch of the new workbook and the new planner.
It's going to be in LA or OC, so anyone who's in the area
and would love to meet me, I'd love to meet you.
I'll leave a link down below for the event page.
Hopefully I'll have more planning done by the time this video is out.
Right now I'm still in that scary stage of nothing is really set in stone,
but I want to have an event, so we're gonna see what happens.
Alright, I am back home now.
I was just shooting a few videos with Canna Campbell,
Sugar Mamma from Australia which was really fun.
It was so cool to meet her in person.
But since, I woke up, had breakfast and then went to shoot,
I really didn't have time to pick up my phone to go on social media, so that is good.
I did pick up my phone to check email.
And I noticed that I kind of do that on autopilot.
I actually opened my phone to check email two or three times?
So I broke that rule.
I mean, one of the times was to get Canna's phone number so I could text her.
But anyway, now that I'm home I'm going to post some Instagram Stories.
I'll post a photo.
This is my posting time.
Alright, day 2 update: I noticed that since I'm not spending time on social media,
I have a lot of time to knock out the little things.
Like for the past three hours or so,
I was literally knocking out all these things that have been on my to do list,
like update my website pages, order foreign currency for my trip,
just a lot of admin stuff that I would usually ignore.
But because I have time, I'm like, "I might as well just do it,"
so I've just been knocking things out.
I have my little to do list that I've knocked everything out.
There's a couple other things that I have to do.
I'm going to unpack all of my gear from today's shoot, then offload footage.
After that, I'm just going to relax.
It's like 9:30.
By the way, my car's battery died today, so I have to get that fixed tomorrow.
And because that's died, it kind of pushed back some things.
But we'll see how I deal with it tomorrow,
not being able to use social media while waiting for my car to get fixed.
By the way, I had a weird dream.
Instagram accidentally posted a weird series of pictures and videos on my account
because of this new part of the app.
Because I wasn't checking social media, I didn't realize that something accidentally posted.
It was just random pictures of other people or close ups of someone's face.
And then when I checked it, there were all these comments from people like,
"What the heck is this? This is so weird."
That's weird because I've never had a dream like that before.
Just me?
Yeah, okay.
As I'm waiting about 30 minutes for someone to come help me jumpstart my car,
normally I would kill time on social media,
but I am now doing dishes and whatever housework needs to be done as I wait to go fix my car.
I'm waiting, so things I can do is work on preparing some new videos.
Hey guys!
It's day 4.
Right now I'm driving to the YouTube Space in LA actually.
I'm going to a workshop for women YouTube creators.
It's a little easier to not be on social media when you're busy and have places to go.
This morning was fine.
I was just using music to wake up and got ready.
Here I am.
By the way, I'm driving a loaner car since my car's getting fixed,
but isn't this so cool? Red.
Alright, so I'm done with the workshop
and right now I'm heading to dinner with Sahara Rose.
If you guys listened to my podcast, she's the Ayurveda expert.
Since I'm in the area, gonna have dinner with her.
Social media update is: I did pretty good because I was in a workshop all day
and the only time I did have to use it was
to find the social accounts of the people that I met today.
So I feel like that's a good exception.
Alright, currently in the car.
Before I drive home I'm going to post my Stories from today.
Alright, that was an eventful day.
Now I'm going to drive home.
Goodnight!
So it's Friday, and I'm actually on the way to return this car,
and then after that I'm going to fly to San Francisco.
It's one of my girlfriend's birthday this weekend, so I'm going up there.
And today I posted a new video.
Normally I have that urge to check comments right when I wake up, and answer comments.
But today I didn't do that on my phone.
Instead, I got up and I did it on my desktop,
because I didn't want to spend all the time on my phone.
So I did all the work on my desktop which was fine.
And yeah, I basically had a call and now I'm out and about.
We'll see how it is at the airport without social media.
After these five days though, I already feel more clear, like my mind is clear.
I do feel like things are quieter, maybe a little lonelier
because I don't feel as connected to the outside world.
But I think it's really good for my productivity and my mind.
Yay, I got my car again.
Now I gotta go home and then to the airport.
And the social media detox week is officially over.
It actually ended the first day of our trip,
so the next couple days I just hung out with friends, went back on Instagram as usual.
The only other apps that I redownloaded were YouTube and YouTube Studios.
Those are the apps that I use to reply to your comments on YouTube.
Since I'm traveling, away from the computer,
I still like to reply to comments every once in a while.
It's my productive way to kill time, I guess, when I have free time on my hands.
So on top of that, I think I will redownload Facebook
because I have to use that for my job as well, managing our Facebook groups.
I realized though, that I absolutely do not need to have the Twitter app on my phone
because Twitter, there's no reason for me to go there.
I go there to just check up on news.
And when I'm bored, I have nothing to look at, I just go there, read my mentions and stuff.
It's just a waste of time, so I think I won't be redownloading Twitter on my phone.
I'll just check it on desktop.
After this weeklong detox though, I did feel more productive.
I felt like I could work with more clarity, and I actually loved the feeling.
I felt more centered, more at peace.
On the other hand, I did feel a little lonely, kind of like things were a little too quiet,
because I was used to connecting with my friends or connecting with people I follow online.
And I felt like, throughout the week, I was in my own world and just existing in a little bubble.
Another thing I did miss from not being on social media was checking your Stories about me
because I get a lot of @ mentions on Stories on Instagram
and those expire within 24 hours so I just kind of like to look at them.
But throughout the week, I didn't get to look at any of those mentions.
So it's kind of like, I wonder what you guys posted about me.
Regardless, that's still a distraction, and checking those things are just for my own enjoyment.
I don't really have a purpose to check my mentions or my comments or anything.
I'd probably be better off spending my time being productive, creating something.
So this is still – I can tell already, it's not a habit that I've ingrained yet.
I have to keep doing this longer and find a balance,
not to completely detox from social media,
but just to check it a lot less and not get sucked into it
so that I can have more time to be productive
and balance out my actual work vs. checking what everybody's saying.
It's still a learning process,
but I do believe in the benefits of just unplugging from social media.
I think everybody should do this at least monthly.
It should be a regular, consistent thing.
Alright, so I think I'm going to continue this week with another milder social media detox.
I'll be able to post and check it more often,
but definitely don't want to go back to how I was before.
Let's keep up the good habits.
I hope that you guys try this as well.
Definitely take some time to unplug from social media.
Create your own rules, whatever works for you.
Good luck, let me know how it goes.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
And I'll see you guys next time.
Bye!