As the clocked ticked (well, ok, digitally refreshed) to 8am this morning, I suddenly remembered I was allowed back on Facebook again.

I haven’t bothered blogging about it since Tuesday, because there was really nothing to say. I barely even thought about Facebook, apart from feeling quite smug on Thursday and Friday, when I knew I was going to make the week away. I felt freed, because I tend to check Facebook every 10-15 minutes (I know, I KNOW), and I was surprised how easy it was to just…not do that. I can’t even begin to explain how much I got done in the past week, new projects, tons of creative stuff, and I was actually getting stuff finished. Here’s a sample of my working process:

9.00 Start working/writing/creating, lots of excitement and enthusiasm.

9.35 Quick check of Facebook. Just in case anything interesting has happened.

9.50 Might as well check Twitter and Hotmail, too. But if there’s an important email, just mark it up to reply to later.

10.10 Oh god! I wonder what so and so’s new haircut looks like! I bet it’s awful. Facebook again.

10.20 Actually, it’s quite nice. I think I might get mine done like that. *Scrolling through photos*….who’s that? I like her dress sense.

10.40 And I look down to find I’m on photo 192 of some random girl I’ve never met…time to get back to work.

10.45 Write a sentence or two.

10.55 Feeling smug and encouraged by the burst of activity. I might just Google that thing I was thinking about earlier.

11.15 Time for Facebook again…

 

You get the picture. It’s horrific. Or, it was. Despite not coming off Google or Hotmail or Twitter, I found those things tended not to distract me so much as I was using them for a good purpose. It was as if, by the very act of taking away the chief timewaster, I snapped into action. I’ve never worked so hard in my life.

So where do I go from here? Clearly I can’t be trusted to just….live with Facebook, on my own. I’m thinking about implementing a system where I can check it for 15-20 minutes, 3 times a day: morning, lunchtime, evening. And certainly not on my phone. I’ve been more encouraged to text or call people, instead of just lazily Facebooking them. I also enjoyed not having the Newsfeed fear: not knowing if you’re going to see something you don’t want to. Or maybe that’s just me?

I would really recommend everyone who feels that pull towards the site tries coming off it for a bit. I was so resentful about how much of my life it was taking up, and absolutely obsessive about finding out what was going on, all the time. Go on – try a week away from the ridiculous thing. See what a difference it makes to your life.