Eliminate Garbage Time (or Marie Kondo Your Leisure)

I was recently talking with some friends about the habit of spending too much time on Facebook, and I realized something about myself:

I’ve already followed my own advice from my last blog post. I’ve unfriended the addicts who constantly start arguments in apolitical posts. I’ve unfollowed the people who excessively post obnoxious political content. I hide the sources of annoying shared political content whenever I see it. And I’ve trained myself to just scroll past the political hate by the people who sometimes post hate and sometimes post stuff I want to see.

But I realized there’s another class of political content on Facebook: People who post intelligent, reasoned, non-hate based commentary, which prompts discussions rather than arguments.

Now, there’s nothing inherently *wrong* with this. Except that often I’ll decide I want to take a break for a few minutes, look at Facebook, read their post, then the ensuing discussion, perhaps write up my own response, get involved in the discussion, and check back several times to repeat this process. Then by the end of the day, I’ll have gotten very little productive done, and wonder where all my time went.

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There’s something I’ve noticed in entertainment that I call insidious mediocrity. That’s where a movie, TV show, video game, etc. isn’t something you actively enjoy, but is just marginally entertaining enough to keep you from turning it off. Then after spending hours on it, you get to the end, and think, “Man, that was lame. Why did I waste so much time on that?” You probably would have actually preferred if it was a bit worse, because then you would have quit after 15 minutes and spent the rest of that time doing something more useful or enjoyable.

I realized that’s what’s happening with these political discussions. This isn’t any criticism of the people writing erudite and intelligent posts, or the other people participating in the conversations. But for my personal tastes, the time I was spending on this was a waste. It wasn’t bringing me joy. I didn’t feel like I was creating anything of value. It was just a worthless time-suck. Plus there was the ever-present risk that my old addiction could rear its head and discussion could turn into argument. So I’ve been unfollowing the people who post a lot about politics, even if what they post is polite and interesting.

You may not have the same tastes as I do. Perhaps you have a blast discussing politics. But if you don’t, this may be something for you to consider.

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In general, it’s worth every so often doing an audit of your leisure, and applying the Marie Kondo strategy. Marie Kondo is an anti-clutter guru who recommends going through your house and getting rid of any item that doesn’t bring you joy. My suggestion is to do the same with anything that you regularly spend your leisure time on.

Now, there’s a certain genre of unhelpful self-help books that expect you to have infinite will-power, and demand you spend every waking moment doing something productive or building your personal growth. They insist that any leisure time you spend should be on something high-brow. I say that’s wildly unrealistic, and taking that nonsense seriously will just leave you feeling guilty about yourself.

Sometimes you just want to flop on the couch, turn your brain off, and watch something stupid on TV. Or scroll through Facebook, Or play some Red Dead Redemption. Or whatever your diversion of choice is. And that’s totally fine.

But you should make sure that your mindless fun is actually fun. Otherwise, what’s the point? Why waste your time on something you don’t care about when you could be enjoying yourself?

It’s worth investing a few minutes to improve the fun you have going forward. Set your DVR or subscribe to a streaming service so you can watch your favorite shows instead of random stuff you don’t really care about. Cultivate your Facebook News Feed to be only the most interesting and entertaining people/groups/pages. Pay a few bucks for the phone apps and video games that you actively enjoy instead of pointless time-wasters. 

And keep in mind, your idea of what’s truly entertaining may not match up to others, or to societal expectations, or to what you read in self-help books. If you genuinely love Real Housewives or Property Brothers or solitaire or Candy Crush or esoteric arguments about Pokemon fan-fiction, then those are absolutely things you should spend your time on. Don’t let anyone judge you or tell you differently. (Well, I mean, you can’t really stop them from judging you or telling you differently. It’s not like you have mind-control or can superglue their mouths shut.* But you should ignore them and refuse to care about their opinions regarding what you choose to do with your own time.) 

However, if you’re just doing these things because they’re easily available and the default options, and not because you really like them, then you should seek out better and more enjoyable uses of your time.

This is why I recommend every so often taking the time to Marie Kondo your leisure habits. Stop and think about if they actively bring you joy, or if you’re just doing them on autopilot. It’s okay to turn your brain off from time to time, but you should at least make sure that the things you’re spending your time on when you do so are things you find fun.

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* Side note: I highly recommend that if you’re looking for stock photos to add to a blog post, do not do an image search for “mouth glued shut.” Learn from my mistake.