How to 80/20 your social media use

When it comes to using social media, many of us are trapped in what Cal Newport calls the “any-benefit mindset”: We justify using a particular social media tool if we derive just a modicum of benefit from it. 

The problem is that this mindset completely ignores the associated cost, for example time confetti. It’s better to adopt a “net-benefit mindset” and only use social media tools that offer a clearly positive impact on our professional and personal goals.

To identify these tools, Newport recommends applying the Pareto principle. According to that principle, 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes. It applies across all walks of life. For example, many companies thrive by focusing their efforts on the 20 percent of clients that bring 80 percent of the profits.

Similarly, we can apply the Pareto principle to our social media tools – by identifying and focusing on the ones that support us in accomplishing our professional and personal goals. Newport offers a three-step approach to focus our time, energy, and attention on the tools that help us thrive.

First, identify the main high-level goals in your professional and personal life. Naturally, these are highly dependent on your work and life reality. For example, one of Newport’s high-level goals as a professor is “being an effective researcher”. In the personal realm, high-level goals might include things like “running an organized household” and “being a good parent”.

Second, list the two or three most important activities you need to do regularly and effectively to accomplish these goals. Be specific enough that you can clearly picture yourself doing them, and also general enough so that they aren’t tied to a one-time outcome. For Newport’s high-level goal of being an effective researcher, one example is “regularly read and understand the cutting-edge results in my field”. In the personal realm, one example might be “stay attentive during family meals”. 

Third, look at the social media tools that you use. Then, determine which of these tools have a 1) substantially positive impact, 2) substantially negative impact, or 3) little impact on your ability to perform those most important activities regularly and effectively.

Newport recommends only using social media tools that fall into the first category. While you should definitely avoid the tools in the second category, I suggest applying a complementary approach, the “social media fast”, to those in the third. I’ll delve deeper into that approach next week.

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Until next week,
Christian