The Time Management Massacre

Halloween is fast approaching and I, for one, am really excited. My daughter is going as a princess butterfly. A princess butterfly is what happens when a four year old smashes two concepts that she likes together and it becomes its own thing, like this video I saw online where someone made a ham and cheese sandwich, dipped the sandwich in batter, and proceeded to grill the whole thing like french toast. What I’m saying is that princess butterfly = ham and cheese french toast sandwich.

Other things I’ve read online, mostly through links found on social media, include the top ten worst halloween costume fails. Somebody dressed their kid up like a pack of cigarettes in that one. I also took a halloween movie poster quiz which I nailed 100%, a fact that I pridefully shared on facebook complete with a link so others could take the quiz. Let’s see, I don’t remember which listicle this came from, but did anyone else see that adorable picture of little kid dressed as Cruella Deville and her baby brother was a devastated dalmatian puppy. That one almost made me put away the princess butterfly costume and run out for some black and white temporary hair dye.

So, if you haven’t picked up on it yet, all of these things have something in common. From the ham and cheese french toast to the Cruella Deville costume, all of these things were found online. And I assure you, the above examples accounts for only a fraction of the listicles, slideshows, and videos I’ve viewed recently.

You see, my wife showed me this neat feature on our phones. From the settings menu, tap the battery icon and this will show you in the past twenty-four hours or longer what apps you’ve used that have contributed to draining your battery. It also tells you how long you’ve spent on these apps. I assume for most people, as it was for me, that number is horrifying.

We hear all the time about how we’re addicted to our phones and spend too much time on social media, but seeing the numbers drives home the point better than any article or blog post lamenting our society of narcissism and the lost art of human interaction. It’s much more effective because it’s a personal number, like a low score on a midterm or your work’s performance review. That number reflects who you are as a person and what you spend your time doing. I’d be thrilled if I went into that setting and saw that I’d spent an hour on my phone organizing bills or researching some interesting topic or finding some fun halloween crafts to do with the kids. But, nope, I apparently use my phone mostly to browse social media.

Don’t get me wrong, i’m not about to delete these apps because they still have their uses. However, I also know that I can spend almost hour on facebook because someone posted a meme that set off a chain reaction of fifty plus comments wherein at some point, someone will most certainly call another person a snowflake or a nazi. I feel pretty confident in saying that is an hour wasted.

The key is to curb the use of social media. Use it the way that it is most beneficial to yourself and to others. I could comment on a picture of my sister’s kids and tell her how happy her family looks. Instead of the celebrity halloween costume fails listicle, I could read the one about making spooky halloween treats for kids, and then get off my phone, go to the store, get the necessary supplies, and actually make them. It’s hard though. Garbage articles are called clickbait for a reason. I just have to remember, they are time killers.

According to that time tracker on my phone, I’ve spent enough time on social media that it nearly amounts to a part time job. Yet, there are things that don’t get done at the end of the day and I say to myself, “I just didn’t have time to get to that.” For example, the last time I put up a post for Barberry Writers was September 20th. The post before that was on August 4th. This falls somewhat short of the once per week goal Barberry Writers has set. So here is my resolution: I will post once a week on this site. I will prepare for this upcoming NaNoWriMo and try to hammer out a first draft for a horror novel (a goal that I’ve now failed to achieve for literally half of my life now). Social media can wait. It’s the junk food of the internet. Or should I say, it’s the ham and cheese french toast sandwich of the internet; an amalgamation of ingredients and flavors that, although interesting, can’t be good for you, and probably doesn’t taste great either.