I am writing this from my desk at home, where I am based. I live pretty much in the middle of nowhere and am home alone for much of the day. Don’t worry – I’m not asking for sympathy, just setting the scene! My point is this could be a very lonely life. The fact that I have young children with school runs and all the structure that brings plus clients either here or elsewhere means I am not lonely. Also – there is good old social media. At the touch of the mouse or screen we can spy on our friends’ lives – or, putting it a nicer way, catch up with our friends. We all know it is great to catch up with friends, old and new, in this way and to keep up with their news. But it can also lead to slightly more negative experiences. Jealousy being one. Time wasting being another.

Let’s just remember, we only put on our face book pages, instagrams etc (other social medias are available….) what we want people to see. It is all too easy to look at someone’s page and think their lives are made up of handsome husbands and successful children. But really, who is going to flag up the day they overslept, shouted at the children/dog/husband/mother-in-law (delete as appropriate), pulled yesterday’s trousers out of the laundry basket and ate cereal out of the packet because there were no clean bowels? It is so important we remind ourselves no-one’s lives are perfect, however amazing they look on the screen.

Now for time wasting. We’ve all done it. We’re sitting at our desks and it’s nearly lunchtime so we think we’ll just check face book …. an hour later we’ve achieved nothing, not had lunch, not had a break from our desks and feel pretty brain-dead.

Not for one moment am I suggesting we should all bow out from social media. It’s fun, it’s useful and it can serve great charitable purposes. However, I am suggesting we all could benefit from monitoring how and when we visit our sites. Is our time ‘catching up with the day’s social news’ really well spent or is it encroaching on time that would be better spent working, talking to people face to face or getting outside for a proper break, for example?

As with so many things in our lives, social media is great – as long as we remain in control. Not the other way round.

#time management #life coaching #social media #Sherborne #SouthWest