If you’re like me you probably get sucked into your phone too often, falling down the rabbit hole of continuously scrolling Instagram and Facebook. But it’s a New Year, new beginnings right? I recently took a good look at who I’m following on my personal and blog Instagram accounts and did some purging… in fact between my accounts I unfollowed thousands (previous to this I had never really unfollowed anyone!) and in doing so it greatly simplified my social media checking routine, spending less time online.

Why I Purged My Social Media (And Why You Might Want to Too)

Who I Unfollowed

First, I know I personally feel a little hurt when I realize someone unfollowed me (why don’t they like me??) - but if you’re reading this and I unfollowed you please realize it’s nothing personal at all. Over the many years I’ve had social media I have followed thousands of accounts, but I’ve never actually reevaluated their relevancy to me as time went on and cleaning house was long, long overdue.

Here are some types of accounts that I unfollowed:

Accounts that are “Dead”: As I went through my lists, I found hundreds of accounts that have been “dead” for years… blogs or business accounts that have gone out of business or people that for one reason or another have just stopped updating a particular account. While these accounts aren’t cluttering up my feed, they aren’t doing anything for me either so I unfollowed them.

Accounts that Don’t Reflect Our Current Stage in Life: And then there’s accounts that used to be relevant to me but aren’t anymore… for example years ago when we were first starting our family I followed lots of baby-centric accounts and businesses. However our kids are all past the baby stage now and I just don’t need to know about the newest bottles or baby carriers these days. It’s definitely bittersweet closing the door on that stage in our lives but the practical reasoning is we just don’t need to be up-to-date on baby trends anymore. So any irrelevant accounts to our current place in life were unfollowed too.

Accounts that I was Following “Because Everyone Else Is”: There were plenty of accounts I was following strictly because they were big-name brands/companies or ultra-popular influencers or bloggers. I was mostly following them because I felt like I should be, even though most of their posts were essentially ads and I didn’t find following them enjoyable myself. I’m personally not a huge fan of impersonal/overly-commercialized posts so I unfollowed a lot of these types of accounts too.

Accounts that I Follow in More than One Place: I have both a personal and blog-related Instagram account and realized there were quite a few accounts that I was following in both places… this was kind of redundant as I was often seeing the same posts twice. I really didn’t want or need to see the same things over and over so I would decide where made the most sense for me to follow an account and would then unfollow it from my other account.

Accounts that Bring Me Down: Do what’s best for your mental health and your self esteem! Are there accounts that you follow that are too pessimistic? Or too perfect and it makes you devalue yourself subconsciously? Get rid of them. You don’t need that kind of negativity in your life - only follow accounts that raise you up or inspire you in a positive way.

Accounts that I Don’t Enjoy: As I went through my lists of who I’m following I realized something - I honestly don’t enjoy fashion bloggers (no offense to any fashion bloggers out there!). As much as I love a good outfit inspiration I am not into “fast fashion” and I’m not someone who constantly buys clothes or the latest styles. I actually think it’s really bad for the environment to constantly consume clothing and accessories that will only be worn a few times (and a lot of these influencers will only wear items for a post or two then get rid of them). Fast fashion isn’t something I condone or enjoy so I won’t passively support it by following all those influencers.

Important Note: Don’t Try to Purge in One Day!

I made this mistake myself… when I first decided to clean house I stayed up really late one night and was determined to work my way through my list and clean it out in one go - but then Instagram blocked my account for 24 hours. If you do too much of one action in a short amount of time (like unfollowing other accounts), Instagram will flag your account as spam and lock you out temporarily… and apparently if you keep it up they will keep locking you out for longer each time, potentially banning you permanently (so scary!). Getting locked out for 24 hours was very frustrating, but it made me realize I have to tread lightly moving forward. When you’re purging, make sure to never unfollow more than a few accounts at a time and make sure to continue to use Instagram as you normally would (liking, commenting, engaging with others like usual). Purging your feed will be a work-in-progress for a while and will take time.

Who I Muted

Did you know you can “mute” accounts too? That way they don’t show up in your feed but you’re still following them. There were some accounts that I was following that I still wanted to follow to show some support, but were totally cluttering up my feed and driving me nuts… for example maybe you have an old school friend who has taken an endeavor into MLM sales. As much as you might love this friend and want to support her, you don’t want to see ten posts a day on essential oils, or fake nails, or eyelash serum or whatever it is that she’s constantly pushing. You’ll still show as a follower to her and it would be good idea to make a note to occasionally hop on over to her account to engage in a post here and there - but it’s not going to constantly fill your feed with stuff you’re not interested in anymore.

Turn Notifications OFF

If you haven’t already, it’s also a great idea to turn off Notifications Off across all your platforms. Seeing those little “dings” constantly come up when friends post, like, or comment can be overwhelming and drag you into checking your phone every few minutes. If you turn these off you’ll be less tempted to constantly check your phone - and make a point to only check it at certain times during the day. I have already had my notifications turned off for years now (it’s something I made a point to do a long time ago), and I will continue to keep them off.

Why My Social Media Experience is Better and More Efficient Now

After you’ve made sufficient progress purging who you’re following, you’ll notice that your feed is full of things that you actually want to see - no more “junk” that you used to waste time scrolling past everyday. Your feed will be full of accounts that you find positive, intentional, and inspiring - not to mention following less accounts will make it quicker and easier to catch up on recent posts every day.

And another positive side effect of my purge? It seems to have reset the algorithm for what I typically see in my feed. There were a lot of accounts I was following that I honestly had totally forgotten about because I hadn’t seen any posts by them in my feed FOR YEARS. But as I made progress purging who I was following I started to see those long-lost-to-me accounts in my feed again and it was so refreshing! I was able to re-discover a lot of accounts that I used to love following and it’s wonderful to finally see their posts again in my feed and reconnect with them. (And if you rediscover an account you want to see in your feed again, make sure to like and engage in their posts so Instagram will learn to continue to show them.)

Going Forward

Going forward this is something I definitely want to keep up with. I had neglected reevaluating who I was following for years and since I had let it get out of hand it took weeks for me to slowly purge since I had so much catching up to do. From now on this is something I’ll plan on revisiting at least once a year (I even put a reminder in my calendar for next January as part of my New Year’s Resolutions). Your social media feed should be enjoyable and inspiring, and it should be more efficient to check - by actively managing it hopefully you will see an improvement in your social media experience too.

So far I’ve really only tackled Instagram but I am planning on working to purge who I’m following on my other social media accounts too (especially Facebook and Pinterest) for the same reasons.

This week I was hoping to bring you a post on making pickles. I've never made them before and wanted to give them a try with all the cucumbers we've been getting out of our garden. Unfortunately I let the cucumbers get too big and they were all seeds - no good for pickles. Such a bummer, but I've learned my lesson. So, without the pickle post I decided to share the easy brick upgrade we did on our concrete walkway after we moved in our home.

DIY Brick Walkway Upgrade for a Concrete Pathway Tutorial - add value and class to your entry

When we first moved into our home there was nothing in front of it.. no bushes or anything substantial, just a plain white concrete walkway and a bark mulch bed with a few sad daffodils that had already gone by. It was so boring and even the walkway looked really unfinished.

The obvious solution to dressing up the existing "flower" (I use that term loosely here) bed was to get plants and bushes in there - but what about the concrete walkway? Luckily for us the previous homeowners had left behind a lot of bricks... A LOT. Some were stacked under the back deck, but there was also a small random brick patio that we had plans to disassemble anyways. There were sooo many bricks.. it was actually becoming a problem on where to store them and what to do with them.

While trying to figure out what to do I came up with the idea of inlaying them along the walkway to dress it up a bit - and though it was a little time-consuming, the whole process was actually really easy!

Materials:

lots of bricks (enough to line both sides of the walkway, plus a few extra)
edger
wheelbarrow
spade
rubber mallet

How to:

First I started hauling all the bricks to the front yard and laying them along the walkway to make sure I had enough (though we had so many I probably could have done this project twice!). I started laying them out at the front steps and put them end-to-end along the whole length of the walkway, along both sides. This way I was able to get a sense of how they fit and where I would need to do cuts (we were very lucky to have a pretty straight walkway, so the cuts needed were minimal). If you're thinking of starting this project from scratch, I would recommend measuring the length along both sides of the walkway, then head to your local home improvement center to see what they have for bricks, their sizes, and how much they cost. Once you decide on a brick you like, you can calculate how many bricks you will need.

Laying out all the bricks.  You can also see our first additions to the flower bed - some tiny boxwoods and hydrangea bushes.  It's amazing how much they've grown! — Laying out all the bricks. You can also see our first additions to the flower bed - some tiny boxwoods and hydrangea bushes. It's amazing how much they've grown!

After everything was all laid out, I started by using the edger along the side of the bricks to cut the edge of the "trench" they would be set in. I made sure not to get carried away and would only prep about two feet ahead of where I was. I would cut as I went along to compensate for how the bricks were sitting against the walkway.

Laying in the bricks for the DIY walkway update

Once the outside edge was cut, I would use the spade to dig out enough soil for a brick. Then I'd set the brick in and pound on it with the rubber mallet until it was even with the grass. Sometimes I would need to take the brick out and add or remove soil until it sat where I wanted it too.

I continued this process along the line, brick-by-brick until I got to corners or areas where the bricks needed to be cut. After tracing on the bricks where cuts would need to be and a quick trip to a local mason, they were cut and ready to be inlaid as well.

Instant value and class for a worn concrete path

We have a really long walkway and I worked on this project at my leisure over the course of a week or two but probably could have gotten it done over a weekend if I had really set my mind to it. It's definitely made a huge difference to the curb appeal of our home.

The now-full flower beds look great next to the brick lined walkway.

Update: This project idea was recently featured on the DIY Network Blog, Made + Remade! You can check us out at #7 on "9 Driveway and Pathway Updates on a Budget".