Signora Sheila

Have you ever had an epiphany moment in your life? Those aha! moments, that make you sit up and take notice? I have, and one came to me recently. It came one evening when I realized that I didn’t want to spend all my time scrolling and reading online.

Epiphany: a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.

Now I know that, as a blogger, promoting less Internet use probably seems a bit incoherent. Because like all bloggers, I hope that others will read and be encouraged by what I write. And I really appreciate each and every one of my followers, both here on the blog and on social media.

But it doesn’t really make sense to read or follow things we’re not really interested in, does it? Or following others just to get more likes and followers for ourselves.

Sometimes we need to reflect on why we do what we do. And I realized I needed to take my life back from the Internet.

So I started Internet decluttering, and I’m so glad I did! Maybe you feel the need to do this too. Especially now, in this time of isolation and social distancing, when the temptation to spend too much time online is stronger than ever. If so, try these simple steps to Internet decluttering!

5 Steps to reclaim your life from the internet

Because there is so much more to life than spending all our time keeping up with social media, subscriptions, blogs, and all the rest.

1. Follow people for the right reasons.

Subscribe to blogs and follow others to find inspiration, encouragement, or interesting content. And especially because you hope to encourage others. Unsubscribe from blogs or social accounts (including this one), that don’t enrich your life in some way.

Otherwise blogging can quickly go from a joy to a chore! And because if we take in too much content, (no matter how good, inspiring, or encouraging) we can’t even digest it!

2. Don’t follow just to get likes and followers.

Have you ever followed someone, even though you weren’t interested and had no real intention of reading them? I have, but not anymore! If I follow you or like your posts, it’s because I actually take the time to read them and really like what I read! Anything less seems kind of misleading. And because following just to get likes or followers seems a bit like being back in grade school to me.

Don’t follow others just to get more followers and likes. Follow to be an encouragement and to find encouragement, inspiration, or new knowledge!

3. Aim for blogs with more evergreen content.

Evergreen content remains valid and interesting for days or even years to come. Things like recipes, how-to posts, devotional or inspirational posts with a takeaway, informative posts with timeless content, even photos. Blog posts with this type of content are great to read and even reread no matter how much time has passed!

4. Eliminate profiles that that don’t enrich your life.

Eliminate social media profiles that are either take up a lot of your time or don’t have any value to you. This is a tough one because we want to make it easy for people to follow us. Yet, we don’t want social media to take over our lives. So make your profiles to work for you. Do it your own way and find what works best for you.

5. Try to use the internet wisely.

Remember that using the Internet wisely is about communicating, connecting with others, and finding ways to improve and grow.

Less is often more, even when it comes to blogging and social media. That’s why I’d rather have a small community of people who interact with each other, rather than a huge list of followers who don’t know each other. Or follow a lot of sites that I’m not really interested in reading.

The Internet and technology are great tools. But they’re just that. Don’t let the Internet become your life.

The great myth of our times is that technology is communication.

Libby Larsen

📷 Image credits: woman; geese; people; salad; book