Lately, I have had more time to ponder on my life. Some might say this is a good thing others might be terrified of this. I love self-reflection and being able, to be honest with myself and figure out what I need to refocus on. My life has been turned upside down is the best way to put it. I’ll be writing more on this as time goes. I’m in a new position at work that allows me the opportunity to work a regular schedule.
This leads me to the three things I decided I want to start focusing more on.
- More meaningful social relationships
- More intentional with my time
- Pursue more hobbies that inspire creativity
More Meaningful Social Relationships
I know most of my social interactions being on social media even when I have had time to do more. I really use to think not much of it and loved how I could stay connected with so many people through these platforms. I would spend time looking at peoples pictures, see how their lives were going, ultimately trying to stay connected. I would go into the many groups I am in and try to help people by commenting on their questions, giving my input, and reading topics that interest me or I wanted to learn more about. I thought it was such a great idea because almost all of these groups revolved around finances and optimizing your life.
I thought to myself all of this has to be great and I am making a difference. I would get on my newsfeed and just get lost in it and all the overload of content I was digesting. Once I thought about this and self-reflected I realized I was not building more meaningful social relationships.
First thing I knew I had to do was fix my content overload and figure out what content actually was bringing value to my life. On Facebook, I decided to use the 30-day snooze function as this would allow me to
After this first week I have found out I’m not missing much and actually am already seeing more value in my time spent on Facebook. I now am interacting with fewer people more often and interacting in fewer groups more often. I’m starting to slowly create more meaningful relationships. I have also started to do this by going on hikes in my community with friends. I plan to go forward with this and try to add more group type activities and reach out to more group financial get-togethers we do here in San Diego. Lastly, I plan to try and keep connected better with friends and family that are not local. Instead of just liking their pictures or posts I plan to start messaging them more or calling them. Being military does put some roadblocks on this as we can’t just go get coffee if they are in another state or country. Yet I can give more effort on my part with this.
More Intentional With My Time
Not having time to do anything with my old position has made me realize how valuable time really is. I evaluated just how I spent my time. I gave myself a week and literally just looked at how I spent my time and how I could better optimize it to bring me value.
What I found is I started to spend way too much time on social media due to the content overload. I would spend a few hours just looking at my feed and notifications from people and groups I was in. Basically, I was spending time yet getting a real negative return on my investment.
I needed to change my routine and I needed to change it fast. Yet I did not want to overload myself. I’m a firm believer in small improvements to get 1% better every day adds up to remarkable results. I started to just block off time periods for certain activities.
Social Media would get 1 hour only in the afternoon. I’d go to the gym for an hour. Stretch and do a little yoga for 20-30 minutes. Sit outside on my porch and write in my journal for 30 min. Research a fun activity for the weekend coming up. The research has paid in dividends. Because now my weekend is fairly planned out. Which allows me to prepare for the activity and make sure that I actually am getting to do fun stuff. I now also block out time blocks for what I use to call “errands” on the weekend or “chores”. Like cleaning, laundry, food shopping and so on. I try to do most of this during the week in the afternoons.
It’s still a work in progress yet I am seeing so much more value in my afternoons. Before it was where did all my time go, I just got on Facebook. Now it’s oh
Pursue More Hobbies That Inspire Creativity
This is a work in progress and I keep opening more doors every-time I turn around with hobbies and things I want to get into. Right now I have started to go on some amazing hikes and bicycle rides on the weekends. Also, of course, I started to punch out content on my blog. This week I started to really get into yoga and journaling again. The journaling is different than my typical journaling though. Instead of documenting what happened to me that day or month, I’m describing how I felt about the day or life events. Some hobbies below I’m looking at getting into.
- Dancing (Salsa and Bachata)
- Archery
- Trail Running
- Fishing (deep sea mainly)
- Drawing/Painting
Some pics from my hikes and bicycle rides!





Now the dancing can get pricey here. I just bought five dance sessions for $27, so I’ll start that soon. After that, with my military discount, it’s $10 a session at that studio, which is a very fair price for the area. The others I will start slowly planning to put them into my weekend rotations. Having hobbies that I enjoy and bring me
I hope this post and my blog keeps inspiring everyone to improve their lives 1% at a time.
Great post! Completely agree. Social media is no replacement for real relationships. Great for connecting with people far away you have a harder time seeing but still no substitute. I used to live in SD and loved seeing the pics.
SD is so beautiful It’s hard for me to choose what to do on the weekends.
Great thoughts! I have had to tailor FB for me wants and needs. It’s really the only social media I use except Linkedin which I use for professional work items only. I want to take dance lessons too.