I avoid Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and most other social media. I still used LinkedIn more than weekly. Still, I had come to think of it as a place of spam. I don’t know what it’s like for you, but as best I can tell, the words “coach” or “author” seem to invite people I’ve never heard of to promote “quality leads,” book promotion services, and so on.

I wondered if it was worth using. I don’t read my feed. I rarely met people there. Yet logging on took time. Also, those tabs seemed to slow my browser most. I had to install a browser add-on to fix tab names. LinkedIn kept making them change as a notification, which distracted me from effective work.

I knew lots of people who closed their accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and so on. A couple weeks ago I met the first businessman who closed his LinkedIn account. He had worked for a prestigious finance firm. As he described the benefits of leaving it, I sensed I agreed with him, but felt anxious about leaving it. I recognized that anxiety as the addiction speaking. I knew my values pointed to acting.

Formally, I suspended my account. The data is still there, but when I go to the old link to my page, it shows a generic login page. A week or two have passed and I don’t feel I’m missing anything. Whatever I’m missing, I’m making up with what I’m doing with my new time. It’s tempting to say I don’t know what I’m missing out on, but whatever I would have done there was keeping me from other work.

Since my priority is working on my next book, time saved from LinkedIn is better spent on the book.

While I was at it, I deleted all the pictures from my Instagram account. I wanted to change my description and link, but the creepy site requires using the app to do so, not a browser. I didn’t want to stain my phone with the account so left what was there there.

I didn’t have the stomach to log into Facebook to delete things there, but will get to it someday. I guess I will. I don’t remember what’s there.

Next

Will I go back to using LinkedIn? I’m seeing if I sense any loss from leaving, or if I feel freedom. If the latter, I may log back in to delete my account. I sort of feel I should leave something there, but not sure.

Something I found funny: I asked myself, “Should I contact my LinkedIn contacts to tell them I’m pausing my account in case they want to reach me there?” The funny part was that I thought that question after I had paused the account. Had I thought of it before, my analyzing and planning would have delayed my acting. Having acted first, I didn’t mind at all.

Longtime readers know I learned from my experiments living more sustainably that analyzing and planning tend to be a part of my mind delaying. Hands-on practical experience taught me that if I just act, what to do tends to reveal itself as clear and simple. I discovered the pattern beginning with the week avoiding packaged food over ten years ago.

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