WHY SOCIAL MEDIA ZAPS YOUR PRODUCTIVITY AND THE ONE THING YOU CAN DO TO CHANGE THAT - ALBERT ELISHA OBERDORFER

Why
Social
Media
zaps your productivity
and
the one
simple
thing
you can
do to
change
that
ALBERT ELISHA OBERDORFER
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This creature needs to be handled with care.

SOCIAL MEDIA CAN BE
A MENACE.
IF HANDLED unwisely, social media can
choke the life out of you.
And totally zap your
productivity.
I see this in my
students.
The way they
are preparing for an
exam.
With a textbook in the one hand, and a
mobile phone in the other hand.
They may be studying.
But super ineffectively.
If they used one simple method, it could
save them a lot of time.
And it would make them hugely more
productive.
So what is it?
This one thing.
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Morning hours.

THE ONE THING.
TO BOOST your productivity and
effectiveness, I suggest you do one thing.
Only one.
And I can guarantee that you will see a
massive improvement.
Use the time in the morning—when you
are mentally in your best state — for things
that are important to you.
Focus on doing those things first.
So, don’t start your day with social media.
Engage in social media, if you must, later
during the day.
When your mind power has already gone
down.
When you are no longer in your most
productive state.
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Use the
valuable
time in the
morning
to work
on things
that are
important.
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Don’t start
your day with
social media.
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You will
be amazed
by your
progress.
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CONTENTS
SOCIAL MEDIA CAN BE A MENACE. 3
THE ONE THING. 5
WHY SOCIAL MEDIA STRIPS YOU OF YOUR
PRODUCTIVITY. 15
1 SOCIAL MEDIA DEPLETES YOUR BRAIN
POWER. 17
2 SOCIAL MEDIA OVERLOADS YOU WITH
INFORMATION. 19
3 SOCIAL MEDIA STEALS YOUR TIME. 21
4 CIRCLE OF INFLUENCE VERSUS CIRCLE OF
CONCERN. 23
5 SOCIAL MEDIA CONSUMES YOUR
ATTENTION. 25
6 SOCIAL MEDIA FRAGMENTS YOUR
ATTENTION. 27
ONE THING. 29
7 DO WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT FIRST. 31
8 GET INTO A STATE OF FLOW. 35
12

9 RELEGATE SOCIAL MEDIA TO A PLACE OF LESS
IMPORTANCE. 37
10 THE POWER OF THE NOW. 39
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WHY SOCIAL MEDIA
STRIPS YOU OF YOUR
PRODUCTIVITY
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Mindpower is limited.

1 SOCIAL MEDIA
DEPLETES YOUR BRAIN
POWER.
OUR BRAINPOWER is limited.
If we deplete it with things that are trivial,
we will not have it anymore when we need
it for important things.
That is the point.
Brainpower cannot be conjured up at will.
It is a limited commodity.
So, we need to learn to use it wisely.
The best time of the day is in the morning
after we have had a good sleep.
Then our mindpower is at its highest level.
If we use it to work on things that are
important, we will see immense progress.
But if we use it on less important things, or
even unimportant things, like social media,
it will go to waste.
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Don’t allow people to dump on you indiscriminately.
18 ___________________________

2 SOCIAL MEDIA
OVERLOADS YOU WITH
INFORMATION.
SOCIAL media will swamp us with
information, if we let it.
And in most cases, the information is
useless.
In most cases, its
- time-consuming,
- negative,
- irrelevant to our goals, and
- outside our influence. 1
So knowing something does not necessarily
help us much.
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Time is a limited and highly precious commodity.
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3 SOCIAL MEDIA
STEALS YOUR TIME.
TIME IS A most precious commodity.
We have it in a limited amount.
So why waste it on things that are
trivialities?
On things that are not important.
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A problem that concerns her.

4 CIRCLE OF
INFLUENCE VERSUS
CIRCLE OF CONCERN.
IF A PROBLEM is outside our area of
influence, we cannot do anything about it.
So why worry about it?
But social media continually tries to hook
us with this kind of information.
With concerns that are outside our area of
influence.
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Why are these people not talking to each other?

5 SOCIAL MEDIA
CONSUMES YOUR
ATTENTION.
SOCIAL media will provide us with an
overload of information.
But the problem with this is this.
This not only consumes our time.
It also consumes our attention.
And the amount of attention that we can
pay to something is also limited.
So if we allow social media to grab our
attention, it will rob us the ability to pay
attention to other things.
The ability to focus on something.
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Social networking breaks out ability to fully
focus on a task.

6 SOCIAL MEDIA
FRAGMENTS YOUR
ATTENTION.
WE ARE not really made for multi-tasking.
Maybe men less so than women.
Social media fragments our attention.
We are continually being distracted.
So social media constantly breaks our
focus.
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ONE THING.
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Morning hours.

7 DO WHAT IS MOST
IMPORTANT FIRST.
THIS IS the key.
In the morning—when you are in your best
mental state—do what is most important
for you.
Do it first.
So maybe you are a student.
In that case, do your studying when you in
your best mental shape.
Then you will be more effective.
You will need to study less and get better
grades.
Because you will be able to do things
smarter.
You will not need to work harder.
Only smarter.
So when you are focused on an important
task, put your mobile phone away.
Turn it off.
Do social networking later.
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Put your phone away in a gadget box to
keep it safe while you are working on
your most important tasks.

After you have done all your important
work.
You will be amazed how effective and
productive you can be.
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When you are in a ‘flow’ state, you will find
that tasks you may have found to be difficult
to do will become easy and effortless.

8 GET INTO A STATE OF
FLOW.
WHEN YOU create an environment in
which you can be uninterrupted, and you
can entirely focus on a task, chances are
that you will get into a state of flow.
A ‘flow’ state is a mental state in which
you are no longer trying hard to make
something happen.
Instead, you will experience that it will be
easy for you to do things.
Because you are entirely focused.
That is the key.
In that state of flow—a state of uninterrupted
and undivided attention—you will find that
you can do things more effectively.
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She needs to learn to wait.

9 RELEGATE SOCIAL
MEDIA TO A PLACE OF
LESS IMPORTANCE.
SO DON’T allow social media to dominate
your life.
Your mornings, in particular.
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Taking the time to smell the flowers ...

10 THE POWER OF THE
NOW.
YOU CAN break the power of social media
over your life.
By doing this one thing.
By doing your most important work first.
In the morning, when you are at your best
mental state.
And turning your phone off for that period.
Ideally, for a few hours.
You will then find it easier to get into a state
of flow.
And you will discover the power of the
now.
This is a state in which you are able to
appreciate the now.
Like when you are talking to people faceto-face.
And you give them your undivided
attention.
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Endnotes
1 See Tim Ferris, The Four-Hour Workweek.
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Why Social Media Zaps Your Productivity and the One
Thing You Can Do to Change That.
Copyright 2020 © Albert L. Oberdorfer
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
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written permission of the author.
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Unless otherwise stated, all images are courtesy
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