How to try and succeed at doing nothing

Tea.  I will just make a cup of tea before I start.

Ooh someone has just tagged me on Facebook, I will have look and see what it was.

Emails.  I haven’t checked my emails for about two minutes, I will just quickly check.

Anything interesting happening on Twitter?

I might just put the kettle on again.

I’ll squeeze a quick game of that annoyingly addictive game on my app while the kettle boils.

Damn, kettle needs boiling again.  I’ll just check my emails.

Ooh I could Instagram that photo from the other day.

Right I will like a few photos on Instagram while I’m there.

I’ll have a biscuit.  And another biscuit.  Maybe just one or three more?

Damn, my tea is cold.

Where have the last two hours of my life gone?

Sometimes I wonder how much time I spend doing practically nothing.  I have a list as long as my arm of things to do, probably longer.  Let’s face it, being a mum means that there is always washing to sort, ironing, washing up, meals to prepare, snacks and drinks to get, more washing, cleaning, tidying, sorting. Then there are the essential jobs of plugging in devices, picking up dirty clothes that have been abandoned on the floor,  finding those things that are ‘lost’ by the other members of the family (not lost, just not in front of their eyes).  It goes on and on and on. Yet, since I took my first tentative steps into the world of social media and blogging nearly five years ago, I suddenly found myself getting sucked into the digital world for minutes, no, hours a day and discovering that when I was back in the real world, I hadn’t really achieved a great deal.

Yes, social media is an important part of blogging and it can be a positive part.  I do like having a chat, catching up with people and their photos.  Pinterest is a fabulous way to lose a few hours, addictive, pretty but quite inspiring too. But you can lose hours.  Actual hours.

Having it all on your phone makes it even easier to get distracted.  How many times do you just quickly check your phone, only to find yourself twenty minutes later, still there, having failed to do the thing that you were there to do in the first place?  Don’t get me wrong, phones are amazing and so useful but they are so addictive.

Having emails on my phone is good, I can quickly and easily respond to emails at any time of the day or night.  I have noticed that I do get emails responses with phrases like “thank you for your quick reply”.  Maybe they are trying to tell me something – stop checking your phone every thirty seconds you sad woman.

Recently, I have been much better.  Going back to work helps as I am focussed during the day and can only check when I get home.  Except when I get home, there are children to feed, bags to unpack, jobs to catch up with and if I am really lucky, that morning’s breakfast to clear away.

It has been interesting over the school holidays because I have been at home more and I have definitely seen a slip back into my old ways.  Quick check of the phone.  Quick check of emails.  Quick check of social media.  I dread to think what the time would add up to, if I had been counting. Maybe I should count?

But how  do you manage your time better?  How do you stop yourself reaching for your phone at every opportunity? People are always telling me about great apps; apps with lists, apps which will organise your life, apps that will remind you about things, but to be honest I think an app would probably be the worst thing for me.  If I am checking an app, I know I would check everything else on there too, I would do it without thinking.  My husband asked me to check the weather on my phone app today.   Ten minutes later, I was still on Facebook and he had checked on the computer.

Keeping your phone in a different room can work.  If you don’t need it, leave it somewhere else so that you are not tempted to check it.  If you think that a message notification is going to send you running each time, maybe even consider switching to silent or even (god forbid) switch it off altogether.

Starting today, I might catch up first thing in the morning before the children get up and before morning insanity sets in and then I will put my phone away, reserve a couple of hours in the evening to catch up with everything else.  Mornings on social media are quite nice, especially Twitter, where the big companies and corporate tweets haven’t started and you can actually have nice chats with people.  Facebook and Instagram I prefer in the evenings, you can catch up with the days events and comment about yours.  As for emails, I am going to have to ban myself from touching the email icon during certain times of the day.  It is just too easy to check and he’s face it, if an exciting not to be missed email has landed in your inbox, the sender probably isn’t expecting a reply within 30 seconds.

Next week, I am going to try to succeed at doing something and make much better use of my time. Whatever it takes.