There are several narratives that exist through my blog posts. Productivity apps, Workflows and me trying to quit social media. The latest news in accordance with the latter, is trying to use Twitter more intentionally and it’s working very well.

We’ve all been there. Standing and a queue, waiting for something, or just generally any moment where or lives aren’t rushing along – the first reaction is to pull the phone out and start scrolling through an app. Mine is Twitter, I’ve been around there for years and there is usually something interesting going on to take my attention for a few minutes. Unfortunately the level of stress involved and the amount of negativity is really starting to get to not just me but many users.

Quitting Twitter completely is just not an option for me (I’ve tried), I do get a lot of benefit from Twitter – I’ve met loads of really interesting people and started my Podcast because of it. So the answer is to limit my exposure to things that affect me negatively. The perfect solution will not only cut down my usage of Twitter but alos stop this always present urge to pull out my phone at any moment of boredom.

Turning my notifications off mediated this somewhat, I am no longer poked to go back to Twitter by dings. I have never really viewed those notifications as important that need instant attention. The answer has been simply removing the app from my phone, I have drastically reduced my exposure to Twitter, and I really do feel better for it.

My Twitter usage is now restricted to when I want to ‘go and check’ Twitter on my computer. The downside is that I don’t reply to messages and mentions like I used to, and also my tweets will come in short bursts of quite a few in a short space of time. So I must apologise for the time line spam, however I will still continue to share things to Twitter using Linky, and posts to micro.blog will appear there also. I am not gone, just using Twitter far more intentionally and it has worked wonders.