Once you begin to tweet on a regular basis, your brain becomes hardwired to send out pithy reports on your current activities and thinking. And if you work alone for periods of time then it becomes an enjoyable connection to others with similar outlooks and work as your own. This social contact after a while becomes something that you seek inside and outside your working hours, especially if those working hours are set by yourself and not others.
While there’s no harm in a tweet and while twitter can be a source of knowledge and information, if you get caught up in a discussion or debate during your working hours it can put a great big hole in your productivity.
Due to the risk of getting caught up in lengthy discussions on twitter based on a single tweet, I’ve tried many things to stop myself from tweeting when the impulse comes. Things like Pomodoro timers, allowing myself to tweet after a set amount of work, or re-chanelling the tweet energy into more productive areas. But all these things require willpower, which can lapse and land you back into endlessly tweeting when you shouldn’t be.
So what’s my latest solution? It is simply this: rather than open twitter when the urge hits you to tweet, open a basic text file instead and write your day’s tweets in this file. You can then post them when your working day is done.
As you can see there is no clever trickery here. You might not even get around to, or think it worth, posting the tweets you write down during the the day. Alternatively, you might merge, edit and improve them, sending out something of higher quality to your followers.
What won’t happen with this method, and which I believe is the root of its potential success, is chance sightings of interesting links, or points of view, in your twitter stream. Things you feel the impulse to retweet or respond to. And in this way you will be able to take control of your time on social media.
Good luck and happy tweeting!
While there’s no harm in a tweet and while twitter can be a source of knowledge and information, if you get caught up in a discussion or debate during your working hours it can put a great big hole in your productivity.
Due to the risk of getting caught up in lengthy discussions on twitter based on a single tweet, I’ve tried many things to stop myself from tweeting when the impulse comes. Things like Pomodoro timers, allowing myself to tweet after a set amount of work, or re-chanelling the tweet energy into more productive areas. But all these things require willpower, which can lapse and land you back into endlessly tweeting when you shouldn’t be.
So what’s my latest solution? It is simply this: rather than open twitter when the urge hits you to tweet, open a basic text file instead and write your day’s tweets in this file. You can then post them when your working day is done.
As you can see there is no clever trickery here. You might not even get around to, or think it worth, posting the tweets you write down during the the day. Alternatively, you might merge, edit and improve them, sending out something of higher quality to your followers.
What won’t happen with this method, and which I believe is the root of its potential success, is chance sightings of interesting links, or points of view, in your twitter stream. Things you feel the impulse to retweet or respond to. And in this way you will be able to take control of your time on social media.
Good luck and happy tweeting!
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