I Reduced My Time on Instagram to 30 Minutes Per Day. This is What Happened
Let’s get real for a second. Instagram is my job. It would be hard to give it up cold-turkey. I get paid for photography, but I’d say 80% of what my clients are using their photos for is Instagram marketing.
So beyond the actual service of photography, I’m on Instagram every day, scoping out trends, gathering ideas and tips, keeping up with changes to the platform itself, and so much more. It’s like the stock broker who reads the Wall Street Journal habitually before work—staying current is just part of my job description.
But even for me, Instagram can be a time-suck. I didn’t realize how much so until I set a limit on my iPhone so that I could only access the app for 30 minutes a day—all I really should need to “get the grit” if I’m being super intentional about my time there—and discovered that not only does that 30 minutes go by (whoosh!) super fast, but that every time my hands were idle, my impulse was to hit the app. When I couldn’t because I’d already hit my limit for the day, well: I was faced with the question, “What can I do with this time instead?”
These are the unexpected shifts I experienced, why they’re important, and what they could mean if you, too, decide to reduce your social media time each day.
#1: I got a lot more time back than expected.
Like most people, I imagine, I often feel like I just don’t have enough time in the day. I’ve heard the statistic that the average person spends (wastes) more than two hours every day on social media, but I didn’t think that issue applied to me. I work my tail off most of the day, and when I’m on Instagram, I’m working there, too. Right?
Well.
The first day that I reduced my Instagram time to 30 minutes, it went by in a flash. Then the rest of the day, whether I was waiting for my lunch to heat up, I was waiting for a webpage to load, I’d just opened a triggering email, or I wanted to look up an Instagram handle for a client or blog post, suddenly my phone was in my hand, and I almost didn’t even realize how it had gotten there.
When I couldn’t tap Instagram, I ballpark added up over two hours of time between my actual workday and my evening wind-down time that I normally would have been on Instagram and now had to find something else to do.
Imagine that.
#2: I found time for activities I’d been putting off.
Taxes take forever. Learning financial planning is a daunting mountain to climb. Getting up early to do yoga takes away from my much-needed sleep. Meal prep takes time away from the work only I can do in my business. The list goes on and on.
When I gave up time on Instagram, though, I suddenly had time to listen to podcasts I’d earmarked, watch day-trading video trainings on YouTube, organize all my late-to-the-table financial information from 2020 in a spreadsheet, and learn to play chess. (Truly. I re-learned to play chess and Matt and I have been playing every night.) Oh, and just this past week, I started doing Abbey Pinckney’s Yoga Reset program and it is rocking my world.
I also reworked the last part of my Instagram 102 program so that it will soon include a crazy-awesome workbook that will also be sold separately for people who want the workbook without having to buy the full course.
Now, did I get back all the time I feel like I need? No. But some of these things were on my list for forever, and it feels really good to have addressed them, finally.
#3: I was forced to confront some emotional dead weight.
You’ve probably heard that every habit is a cycle of Cue, Routine, and Reward, right? Well, it turns out that any kind of stress or boredom was my cue to pull up Instagram.
Without Instagram there, I found a lot of stress I’d stuffed down was ready to come to the surface. I had at least 3 days, 2 of which were after I started doing yoga and all sorts of pent-up toxins were flushed out from stagnant places, that I basically wanted to collapse to the floor and sob.
Matt could tell I was off and thought I was mad at him. I had to tell him, “I just feel like I need to cry.” When he asked why, I didn’t even have one clear answer; I just knew I’d pushed too much down and now it was all coming up.
Fortunately he understood, and he sat with me while we had an ice cream night in front of the TV and I got to be weepy for old reasons that didn’t apply anymore but I hadn’t dealt with when I should. And it felt really good to do that.
#4: After a couple weeks, I didn’t even need the full 30 minutes on the app.
This was really unexpected. I honestly thought that when I reached the finish line, I’d end up spending an entire day on Instagram, trying to recoup everything I’d missed during Lent.
Nope. In fact, it was only a couple weeks in that I realized at 7pm I still hadn’t used up my 30 minutes for the day.
It turns out I’d been so occupied with making healthy meals, reading You’re a Badass at Making Money, tuning in to the Mind Your Business Podcast, and other, more productive things that I didn’t feel compelled to hop on the app anymore.
Who was I even becoming?
#5: I didn’t really plan ahead for Instagram posting (the one downside during this whole experiment)
I’d been on Instagram 3-4 times a week to post galleries, Reels, Stories, and IGTV episodes since right around Thanksgiving time, which might be the most consistent I’ve been in terms of posting on Instagram since… well, ever.
So it was pretty anxiety-inducing at first to suddenly not be on the app in a strategic, planned way—nor to be planning ahead.
Now, you might be wondering why I made this decision. Planning content for the app wouldn’t be the same as actually being on the app, would it?
To be honest, my thought process here was that the purpose of giving something up for Lent is to release one’s grip on something that might be distracting from one’s faith. I really felt like thinking about Instagram was the same as being on Instagram, so I took a break from creating and even planning content, in order to remind myself to do more with the time God has given me and to look for new ways He might be answering my prayers (which are often, frankly, for more time).
Rest assured, though, this isn’t a permanent thing. I plan to be back on the regular with Instagram posting in almost no time at all! But there are some caveats this time around.
My takeaways
I actually think I’m going to try to continue sticking to just 30 minutes a day actually on Instagram going forward.
It was really good to be able to sit down and write out a financial plan; end a day reading or playing chess with Matt; start the day with a yoga practice that actually grounded me for my work ahead; prep and plate and enjoy and delicious, well-rounded meal at least twice a day... and I think those things are worth the tradeoff of having just 30 minutes on Instagram per day.
BUT I don’t plan on including my strategizing time into that 30 minutes. I view Instagram as my top marketing tool at the moment (during my last launch, more than 50% of my students/buyers came from Instagram; and historically my email list is the #1 source). So I plan to dedicate a good portion of my month to looking ahead to what I want to be talking about and promoting, and shooting Reels or photos for posting.
I definitely feel like this experiment was worthwhile, and if you need an excuse to reduce the time you spend on your phone, you can use this post as your excuse!
What do you think? Would you break up with an app like Instagram for 40 days? Tell me in a comment below! Then as always, pin this post so you can find it and refer back to it later. Until next time, friends!
HELLO! MY NAME IS ALEXIS.
Coffee lover, day dreamer, foodie, and creative. I believe in doing what you can with what you have where you are. I blog to help you do more with what you have. I hope you love it here!
Photos are expensive, I’ll be the first to say it. So how can you make the most of your photography budget for 2022? Here are my top tips for curating a PROFITABLE shot list!