How is that possible? Has anyone else felt like this year has been one of the longest and yet, literally the fastest year ever? How can that be?
My family and I talked about that recently, how time seems to be passing by faster and faster. We came up with the fact that we spend so much time on social media that hours can pass by while we are mindlessly scrolling through our newsfeeds. Has that happened to you? You jump on to just check your notifications for a second and find yourself getting lost in the world of Facebook, Instagram, or even apps like Pinterest?

That sure has happened to me this year and I contribute a LOT of my "lost" hours to social media. Unfortunately, I was not looking at the great things SM has to offer either. I was sucked into the negativity of the year and consuming more than I was even producing at the time.

Halfway through the year, however, my husband and I watched a movie that changed our outlook on social media. I HIGHLY recommend you all watching "The Social-Dilemma" if you can (and if you have already seen it, please let me know what you thought of that! This post will make more sense after you watch it) but it taught us that we need to be very cautious with the world!

We cannot completely abandon social media, however, in the world, we live in, so we decided that our motto is, if you are not producing something good on SM, you are probably consuming and you have to be very careful what you are consuming.

So here are FIVE big steps we both took to be mindful of the time we spend on social media:

1. Nearly every phone now has a setting that will limit your time on the apps you use. We both turned those features on and have limited our use of social media to 1 hour/day (which means we have to be very intentional to use it for good during those times because, believe me, it flies by). At the 1 hour mark, your phone will alert you and you need to fight the willpower to resist the "add 15 minutes" option 🙂
2. Remove yourself from any negative groups or pages and people that you are following. If you don't want to delete them, you can "unfollow" them or "show fewer posts"
3. Follow only positive groups or people that you feel uplifted when you see their info (hopefully you are all following this group and it is helping shed some positivity in your newsfeed)
4. Turning off the phone at least 1 hour before bed and charging in the next room so we are not tempted to check it before bed/first thing in the morning (this helps lower EMF exposure as well)
5. Be the one producing the positivity to others! You can schedule positive quotes, inspirational sayings, Bible verse, etc. whatever inspires you will probably inspire others (it is a great thing to be the positive light others can see 🙂

This has helped us truly seize the moment and actually find a bit of freedom! The social media world is a true addiction but it can still be used for good.

I would love to hear the ways you are making the best of it!

©️NewLeafInspiredLiving, Dr. Sherry Rosado, DC