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I heard from a couple of writers I respect that they are quitting Facebook. Some of them keep their business pages, or just one group related to their blog or latest product. Few are going cold turkey.

I get where they are coming from. Social media can be a huge time suck. Likes, comments, and upvotes are addictive. For some, it means affirmation and validation. For many, it is a popularity contest. But among those who enjoy the popularity, are writers and other business owners like you and me.

Facebook, while a great platform for connecting like-minded people, staying in contact with friends and building your brand, can be hell: People being constantly negative, friend requests from creepy strangers, newbie bloggers who want to use you as a free consultant and their own Google, and content that gets banned for no good reason along with content that should be banned but isn’t…

Yet the positives far overweigh the negatives. And I can’t give up on Facebook. Maybe it is an age thing: You see, I was there almost from the beginning. I signed up around 2007, right after my Erasmus year. It was mainly a way to keep in touch with friends and neighbors. It was also to kill time during an internship where they didn’t give me much responsibility.

So 10 years later, Facebook remains my favorite social networking site. Granted, it has its cons. I hate most design updates. The ads are a bit much. But worst of all, it is so damn easy to get lost in your news feed when you have over 500+ friends.

But don’t worry. Facebook, with a little insight and self-control from you, can be a very powerful business tool, as well as serving as free therapy and entertainment.

So let me provide a proper bullet-point list on how Facebook keeps me sane and productive, and you can decide for yourselves whether it is worth your time. Because if we are honest, it makes procrastination very easy.

1. Traffic and social proof. Most of my blog traffic and shares come from Facebook. I have a lot of writer friends, and friends who want to be writers/or bloggers here.

2. Social media management skills. I might not be the ultimate Facebook guru, but I’m pretty damn good at it. I do social media marketing for clients, so it helps that hanging around Facebook comes as a second nature to me. I love the site. Damn you, Zuckerberg! You created a monster.

3. Groups for social interaction, business growth and learning. Yes, you can google a lot of things, so I’m not suggesting asking friends and colleagues “What’s WordPress?” or What’s blogging?” in this day and age. But there is a lot Google can’t tell you, especially in the specific way you need to learn them.

Google is a search engine, and sometimes you need to ask direct questions to your more experienced peers. Some of the amazing groups I belong to:

Groups on making money from your non-fiction:

30 Days or Less to Freelance Writing Success (private group for Gina Horkey’s namesake course.)
Earn More Writing (group for Holly Porter Johnson’s namesake course)
Beyond Your Blog (Group for Susan Maccarelli’s namesake blog)

Anything related to Screenwriting

Bang2write
Screenwriters who can actually write

Anything ficiton-writing

Fiction Writers

I run some awesome groups myself:

Addicted to Writing – official group for this blog
Writers Helping Writers – a group for all things fiction and non-fiction with very few rules. (The existing rules are: Be respectful and nice to each other; helping others comes before self-promotion.)

I get a lot of requests, so I recommend add something about writing to your profile. It also helps if you belong to writing-related groups. This is to avoid people who sign up for everything but not participate, or people who are not serious about writing. Everyone in this group is either working as a professional writer, or trying to. Writers who write as a hobby won’t find it as fun or practical.

Hyperactive Dreamers. This is a super niche group. While most of the members are writers, it is a group for people who love more than more profession, run or want to run more than one business and has multiple fashions. We are extremely helpful, so you are welcome to check it out.

4. Keep in touch with clients. Sometimes you stop with certain clients, but you are on good terms. You can later collaborate on other projects. Or you can just have a wider network. Some of your clients love Facebook. So do you. And who knows? Maybe they want to throw some Facebook-related work your way. Or they see you and remember that they have friends who need writing work.

5. Finding like-minded people. Oh, this is crucial. Many of us full-time writers tend to be at least a little quirky. Frankly, I think it is non-writer people are a little weird, and I need writer buddies to back me up on the sentiment. We have big dreams, and we don’t let overt realism or pessimism deter us. Fellow writers understand why we can’t just write as a hobby.

6. Sharing ideas and exchanging feedback. With some ideas, I’m confident I need to keep pursuing. Some ideas, especially if I’m not experienced in the niche or with the genre, I need feedback on. And once I start working on with an idea, I need more feedback. Obviously, I return the favor.

The good thing about Facebook is that it offers variety. So let’s say you can take criticism, but you are not a fan of tough love. (That’d be me). It’s amazing that I can find friends who will be honest with me without crushing my spirit.

7. Laughter and entertainment. Who doesn’t love a funny video, song, joke, gif, meme…etc? Let me share one right here. The world can be a dark place filled with problems, including and not limited to your own life. So yes, I’m unapologetic about my right to see cute kittens on a regular basis.

8. It improves your writing. When you share posts, you learn quite a bit about how to write succinct but interesting

9. Venting. I don’t recommend venting all the time. It is not pretty, and it might turn off a lot of people, clients and friends included. But we need a place to share our frustration, and writers get frustrated a lot.

I’d argue we lead more challenging lives than other professions, except for other creatives, because we get rejected almost on a daily basis. I’ve been known to receive two rejection emails within 5 minutes. What the….?

I also live in a city with tons of traffic, inconsiderate people, crazy weather and constant construction noise. And then there are health problems and family members…So yeah, we all need to vent sometimes. And it’s great to be welcomed by friends who jump in to say “Me too!” It just is better for everyone if you can combine the anger with some humor.

10. Reducing isolation. I talk to friends, and it feels like I have co-workers. The difference is, I like all of these co-workers. Writing can be very lonely, and it is detrimental to our well-being to be on our own all the time, especially if we have an extroverted side. Social media created the illusion that we’re not working alone, and Facebook just is more comfortable when it comes to messaging and commenting if you’re on your computer a lot.

7 Tips to Limit Time Your Time on Facebook

Turn off the Internet.
Get away from the computer.
Use free apps to block your site. I use SelfControl for Mac. I wrote it about in detail in my productivity book. (If you want to receive The More Productive Writer, email me and I’ll add you to the newsletter. Or you can subscribe to the newsletter by using the TinyLetter form in the right sidebar.)
Schedule more time for exercise and friends.
Leave groups that you haven’t felt the need to participate in a long time, or groups that have failed to provide you benefits.
Unfriend people who you don’t remember even meeting. They aren’t notified when you do.
Unfollow friends whose feed you aren’t enjoying.

How about you? Are you a Facebook person? Let me know your reasons why (and why not) in comments!

And if you liked the post, please share it on social media.

funny pictures chipmunk asks you to-go-on — Yep, that is exactly how I react when I have a cold…:)

Catching a cold can come in any season. You know the symptoms: dizziness, lack of energy, and low fever. I typically get sick during unstable weather, through a combination of the temperature differences between outdoors and indoors, and the differences between indoors with air-conditioning and indoors with no air–conditioning. Combine it with all the open windows and all the others getting sick and voila: you have a writer with a cold, trying not to vaporize and writing despite a headache.

And while I, unfortunately, discovered that there is no way I can be as productive as my usual healthy self, there are still a lot of productive and not-so-exhausting things I can do. Here is how you can work through a cold if you want to or need to:

1) Facebook: Facebook is a great way to catch up with your friends. And since you are sick, it is OK to start replying to your received messages, as opposed to replying when you are totally healthy and supposed to be doing something else.

But it is not all. You can also promote your old & recent articles. If you are well enough to log on to Facebook, you are well enough for some mindless article promotion. And since you are already active there, browse through groups and fan pages, join the ones you like, join some communities. If you already have a bunch of communities you joined before, converse and leave your own relevant links that will bring value to the conversations. Also, leave links in your messages to your good friends. And don’t neglect to copy-paste your article links to your profile.

Worry not. There is no need to overdo anything. 3-4 article links to your Facebook profile/news update within some hours between them is great for exposure and give your friends time to digest and all.

2) Twitter: Yep, you can tweet about your sickness, but while you are at it, why not post some good links? It can be your old or new article links, friends’ articles, or links to stuff you are promoting. If you can turn on your computer and log on to Twitter, you definitely owe this little activity to yourself.

3) Social Media of Your Choice: Are your readers on Pinterest? Dying to get better results on Instagram? Is it time you experimented with TikTok? You don’t have to take photos or videos when you are sick. But you can play around with hashtags and look at other creators’ content for inspiration. And when you get better, you will realize you’ll have gotten rid of some of your promotional chores for a while. At the very least, you will have conducted some market research.

4) Registering and signing up for useful sites: You may have come across links to register for social media sites, sites that pay for your content, e-mail newsletters you find useful, etc… Registering to multiple sites take time. Since you have time now, use it to sign up for useful stuff.

5) Read blogs and articles: If you are well enough to read, take this time to read friends’ and other’s articles and blog posts. If you can comment, please do. If you don’t have the energy, just help spread the word about the article and let the author know you did this.

6) Check and clean-up your e-mail inbox: You may not feel good enough to study newsletters or apply tips that you are getting from them, but you can always clean out spam and other unwanted stuff. The cleaner your email inbox is, the more productive it will be for you to use it when you feel healthy.

7) Organize bookmarks: How many bookmarks do you have? The idea for this article came to me while I was trying to organize an enormous list of bookmarks. Most of the time, we run into a useful resource, we bookmark it so that we can come back to it later. But since this happens with a lot of sites, we barely ever have the time to go back. Sometimes it is even hard to remember we had a list of websites to visit in the first place.

Do yourself a favor by organizing them. Get rid of the ones you don’t need. If you run into some beneficial stuff, remember to stumble them up, and/or write them down on a Word document, so that you will remember them easily.

8) Take advantage of your entertainment. And if you do watch excess amount of movies and TV shows, remember to write about them later. I once devoured 7 episodes of Supernatural on one sick day. I later wrote a lot of articles on them.

If you have done general reviews for that movie/tv show/whatever already, you can come up with comparison articles, collection of best episodes, list posts and many more.

9) Jot down ideas. When you are physically inactive, your mind can go into overdrive. Make use of these ideas: write them down so you can use them later.

So above are things I do when I am not feeling well. What are your tips for “sickness productivity”?

Recommended Articles on Productivity & Time Management

10 Ways Facebook Can Keep You Sane and Productive

9 Productive Things Writers Can Do When They Have a Cold

Intelligent Productivity for Freelance Writers by John Soares

How to Use Our Email Accounts Productively to Avoid Procrastination

How to Turn Procrastination into Productivity: 7 Fun Tips for Writers