Melanie
The Monday Morning Marketing podcast is brought to you by Esther of IPA Group, bringing premier online promotion to your business.
Esther
And Melanie of STOMP Social Media Training, who empowers business owners to manage social media and marketing for themselves. Welcome back to another episode of the Monday Morning Marketing podcast. Today we're talking about how to avoid digital rabbit holes. We all go down them, let's be honest. We say, Five minutes on this platform, and before you realise it, it's two hours later and your tummy is rumbling. Not just me then.
Melanie
No, no, it frequently happened to me as well, in complete fairness, it would happen like... But especially content creation. When I was doing content creation and especially when I was learning and mastering Canva, I disappeared down a horrible rabbit hole for hours potentially.
Esther
Yeah. I mean, it's these people that's, sure, it only takes you. It only takes five minutes. It only takes two clicks. You're like, no, it really doesn't. We know we've been there. So as you were saying with content creation, if you're researching or going looking for information on what to share, that alone can be ours and ours of Google searches and reading blogs and then reading something maybe totally unrelated, but because it is at the bottom of one blog you're like, Oh, I'll read this one too, and, oh, I'll check out this thing. And then before you realise that you've gone into complete tangent and haven't actually got anything to share. So how can we avoid it?
Melanie
Well, one of my favourite suggestions, and I don't know how many people see these cropping up online every now and then, is focus hours. I find focus hours quite useful. So I'm normally aware of a focus hour happening one week or one day, and I'll make it an objective for that focus hour. And that could be complete the research or complete all of the graphics I need for one particular image, but for each platform, and then work out all the words that are going to be around it. Or maybe finish off a blog or frame a blog. But I know an hour is probably a bit ambitious for a lot of people for a blog. But normally I've already done my framework, and then I just sit there and write it.
Esther
Yeah, and those focus are more about accountability, because when you join them, they say, What are you going to be working on? You spend about five minutes for everybody on the call or in the room to say what they're going to say and say what they're going to be working on. And then so you work, potentially it's only 50 minutes work because you do have to check in the last five minutes at the end. So it's not the full hour before you get scared and go, an hour is too much for me, or I couldn't possibly do something for an hour. Believe me, you can, because once you open TikTok, X, Facebook, you could be there for two or three hours without realising.
Melanie
Oh, easily TikTok. The amount of people who lose Sunday mornings to TikTok.
Esther
Yeah, especially saying if you have a podcast guest or... Sorry, not guest co-host, obviously not guest. Podcast co-host like I do who will send you funny TikToks on a Sunday morning and drag me down the same rabbit hole. Thanks for that. But you do have to be very careful because you can just... It's the age old thing of I don't have time for this, that, and the other. So something that I like to try and implement every time that I'm going, especially if I'm using my computer, is to use a software called clockify. I think you use one similar to toggle.
Melanie
Yeah, I use toggle. They're both free or they have free options, don't they?
Esther
Yeah. So you can just press click to start and it will time you. Because if you're like, oh, it's only five minutes, it's really not. And it will actually give you a really good time frame of how long you actually do spend on it. Another thing, if you have an iPhone, for example, you can go on to the settings and see just how long you spend each day or each week on the different apps. So that's a real eye-opener too. So the next time you say, I don't have time to do my marketing, take a look at why.
Melanie
No, I agree that actually. And also being mindful of you've got family things or you want to go and collect the kids at a certain time, or you've got a meeting that you've got to get to, try not to arrange to do your digital marketing and your social media type things with deadlines like that coming up and looming up and try and schedule ahead. But I suppose at the end of the day, the only reason why us marketers are in this particular sphere of business is because we really enjoy how things are changing up and frequent updates and latest news. And so trying not to click on that new shiny notification is one thing to avoid. So how do we do that? Remove notifications even if it's for an hour. And there are tools and apps and extensions that can teach you that as well.
Esther
Yes. And that's one thing that a lot of people when I say turn off notifications, they're like, Oh, but what if somebody needs me? The notification will still be there if you click into the app. It just won't be disturbing you while you're focusing on your task at hand. If you need to break it down into smaller chunks, though, you could go on... There's again, a website, free website called the Pomodoro, and it's a little timer and just click it. I think it gives you 20, 25 minutes at the most each time you click it. And then just a little timer goes off at the end of it. So you don't even have to set up timers on your phone, on your anywhere around your office or your house. Just go on to Pomodoro. I think it's a Pomodoro technique it's called and it gives you-.
Melanie
That's P, isn't it? Pomodoro.
Esther
Pomodoro, yeah. So it's like a little tomato symbol at the top, I think.
Melanie
Interesting.
Esther
But yeah, because I think that's what tomato is in Italian. It's Pomodoro. Anyway, learn something new every day. There are also extensions, and I was talking to Melanie about this the other day, and I need to get in touch with our good friend Amanda Webb to get the full name of this extension that you can add to your Chrome or your desktop when you're on Chrome or Safari or things like that. And it blocks social media after ten minutes. So you can be on it for ten minutes, and then it will lock you out for the rest of the hour. So that way then you can't go down a rabbit hole. I promise I'll-.
Melanie
Isn't it?
Esther
Isn't it? But it's one of those things. I don't recommend using it if you're going to be going in scheduling, using that tool, but turn it off for those times. But make sure you turn it back on because scrolling down through the cat videos, and the baby photos and the family updates can really take away all your time. And if you think that you're only using social media for getting ideas from what other people are posting and seeing what the competition is doing, you're not. It's a good place to start to focus and see, okay, what am I actually watching? How long am I spending and where can I cut back?
Melanie
You could also tell your accountability buddy.
Esther
Yes.
Melanie
And if you've got somebody who you're reporting to, because it's going to all this trouble of setting up all these tools and apps and timers and everything else. But if somebody says, so exactly how much time did you spend on social this week?
Esther
ummm.
Melanie
That could be quite mortifying, actually.
Esther
It could be, but if you say, only two hours. No, maybe two hours a day, but definitely not just two hours a week. Because I don't know about you, but I use it for going to sleep as well. That's when I mindlessly just scroll through things on TikTok or Instagram and everywhere, basically. And just scroll, scroll, scroll until my eyes just go, Can you stop now?
Melanie
That sounds vaguely familiar. I'm not admitting anything.
Esther
Yeah, you didn't hear it here first. But it's one of those things that you really just have to be mindful of it, because you could just be shooting yourself in the foot metaphorically, obviously, by saying, I don't have time to set up an ad. I don't have time to design a new photograph, a new image for socials. I don't have time to, when you do, you're choosing to spend your time doing different things. So we're suggesting you use digital tools to prevent the digital rabbit hole that we all go down.
Melanie
That's really funny, really, isn't it?
Esther
Yeah, use digital to stop digital. It's ironic. Have you any other final tips before we wrap up today's episode?
Melanie
I do think there's one more. If you know that you are going to be distracted because you're working from a certain location, and there were some co-working spaces that I used to work in years ago, which were fabulous. And it was great for connecting with people and interpersonal relationships and that stuff, but I actually didn't get any work done there. Sometimes it's down to your environment as much as anything else. I can't work from home. I get distracted by my cats, TV, washing up, anything, really. So I have to be in an office where I'm just locked alone in a dark room, pretty much.
Esther
Whereas I'm more of the opposite. I don't get distracted because we do work from home. I don't care about the washing up, it can stay there. But what distracts me is music, so I can't have music blaring from other people. So it's really funny. I love music. I love listening to music, but hearing other people's music doesn't always gel in my brain. So if you are sharing office with people, make sure that you come to an agreement on whether there's music being played, if it's a radio station, because that too can be a distraction and take you down another rabbit hole of singing along to the songs instead of doing your work. So do be mindful and look out for your environment and look out for ways that you can modify. We're not saying turn off all social media and never go near it again, obviously. I mean, we wouldn't be in the jobs that we're in if we believed that.
Melanie
No, that's true.
Esther
But do try to limit your excessive exposure that a lot of us have, and you might find that you're happier for it.
Melanie
hmm.
Esther
We'd love to hear what you think. And if you've taken up any of these recommendations, I will find out what that is, the extension is called and I will put it into the show notes for you guys. And we'll be back next week with more Monday Morning Marketing. Until then, bye-bye.
Melanie
Bye, guys.
