I just completed a month Twitter-free—from the day before Thanksgiving through the day after Christmas. It went well, and I believe it helped me in three ways.
First, it freed up significant time. Being active on Twitter does require periodic monitoring, especially if you are engaging with others via comments, retweets, and replies. (You certainly don’t want to have an active Twitter thread hanging out there without being aware of what’s going on.) Instead, being off Twitter allowed me to engage with myself.
Second, it decreased my overall digital noise. If you consider digital signal as actionable, relevant information, and digital noise as everything else, my digital signal/noise ratio increased dramatically over this month.
Third, it gave me time to think about strategy. Daily Twitter engagement is a tactical activity, filled with time-sensitive reactions. However, by being Twitter-free for a few weeks, I could stand back and reflect on why I am on Twitter, and how it fits within my broader purpose—a strategic activity. Ironically, these last several weeks off of Twitter may well be my most productive Twitter weeks of 2021, because it’s helped me better define and focus my 2022 Twitter activities.
Anyway, it is time to re-engage with “The Blue Bird.” Indeed, I am excited to dive back in.
But mark my words: next Thanksgiving, I’ll be taking another Twitter break.