Do I consume social media or is it slowly consuming me? This blurred line has garnered increased attention due to recent documentaries like The Social Dilemma, which popularized deeply unsettling questions about the impact of social media on our mental health, politics, even free will.

Yet many of us have our reasons for staying in the game. I’m sure there are some prolific entrepreneurs and writers who have no problem managing their social media usage, but that’s not my experience. I find these platforms consistently distract from my most important work. It’s a huge cost that I just can’t ignore anymore.

I’ve attempted on several occasions to rise above the addiction, placing heavy restrictions on my daily usage. Good intentions only got me so far. Somehow I’ve always been pulled back into social media’s gravity, using it the way it demands to be used (i obsessively).

That is, until a few weeks ago. I have finally decided that social media steals too much of my time and attention to warrant continued investment. For 2021, I’ve chosen a more clear-cut approach to handling social media: network-cutting.

The opportunity cost of social media

On a sunny day in the late 2000s, Mom snapped my photo and uploaded it to her computer. There I was, a freshman, grinning and backlit in front of her blinds. Not candid or stylish — just a grainy placeholder photo to help me complete my Myspace profile. Months later, I adopted Facebook as well, and within a couple of years, I had signed up for Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Unlike most hobbies and habits I picked up in high school, this one stuck. The longer I was on social media, the more weekly time I invested in each platform. I recorded photos from backpacking trips, learned about important causes, shared my own articles and short stories, and networked to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars for my copywriting business — all thanks to social media.

But the benefits did not come without their costs.

The most obvious cost was my time. According to Statista , the average daily social media usage was 144 minutes in 2019. Assuming I’m fairly average — a safe assumption — that means I spent almost 900 hours browsing social media websites in one calendar year. Since high school, that adds up to several months of my life in accumulated scrolling, liking, posting, friend requesting, and meme sharing.

But on its own, sunk time doesn’t directly equate to a lack of value. What I gained for all that time on social media — and whether I could have gotten greater value for my time elsewhere — is harder to quantify.

I think the most apt analogy I’ve heard is that social media is like cognitive junk food. These sites emphasize headlines and hot takes rather than depth and nuance.

Like fast food, social media plays on my weaknesses by maintaining a close enough appearance to substance — so much so that sometimes I can ignore the difference.

The problem is, I don’t want a mere passable substitute for tackling big ideas, understanding the news, and connecting with friends. Just give me the real thing. Give me depth, substance, and real connection.

And what about creators who only use social media to spread and publish ideas? Instant publishing offers many clear benefits — but it also offers a dangerous shortcut for anyone who desires to produce work that lasts.

Author and economist Tim Harford put the opportunity cost of his social media usage in exact numbers: “My Twitter habit is more of a problem. I have 145,000 followers, gently persuaded over 10 years and 40,000 tweets to follow me — that’s about 10 books’ worth, or 20 years of weekly columns. This alone was a reminder of just what an effort Twitter could be.”

How I got here

I’ve never taken more than a single month off social media since my freshman year of high school. And even those few breaks wouldn’t have happened without first discovering the work of Cal Newport, author and professor of computer science at Georgetown.

Newport writes at the intersection of professional development and technology. From late 2018 through 2019, I read three of his books in rapid succession, with one idea rising above the rest: deep work . Here’s a definition from his website :

Newport’s Deep Work Hypothesis caused me to reconsider how I organize my day, what I value in work and leisure, and my relationship to social media.

As a copywriter, deep work is how I make my living. Unbroken, focused attention is what pays the bills and moves my business forward. The more time I dedicate to the craft and business of writing, the better I become and the more work I produce. When something gets in the way of writing, it interferes directly with my earning and career potential.

And nothing pulls me away from writing faster than Twitter, Facebook, or even LinkedIn. What began as an innocent high school hobby now steals so much of my time and attention. I knowingly bleed productivity every week.

The alternative

Maintaining a social media presence — especially for writers and entrepreneurs — often feels non-negotiable. The choice isn’t whether you use social media, but how .

In the opening page of Invested , Charles Schwab writes, “The world of business, like the rest of life, is full of wonderful temptations, and making a choice about where you are going to devote your energy is often as much about dismissing things as it is about choosing something. A singular sense of purpose gives you focus and clarity.”

Cutting social networks from my life for the next year is my attempt to achieve a new level of focus — perhaps one that becomes an advantage. What will a return to focus mean for me this year? Maybe I’ll publish more articles in more reputable magazines than any year before — or earn a book contract. Maybe I’ll finish work early every day and have more time to read, exercise, or call up a friend.

Think about when was the last time you texted someone, “How are you?” Without the crutch of feeling like I know friends from updates from social media, I’ll have to be more proactive. I’ll have to ask. For now, I have many aspirations and I’m optimistic about what a year without social media could mean personally and professionally.

Of course, there’s a possibility that things go counter to my plan. Maybe a year without social media will change the way I see it. Maybe the benefits will become clearer to me and I’ll re-log on to each platform with enthusiasm at the start of 2022.

If I’m honest, I doubt that’ll be the case. I believe the internet is a better place to learn, write, and grow a business when I’m not competing for trivial achievements like a fresh new badge about a single retweet or like.

I have a hunch that I’ll never choose to go back to social media. Or maybe it’s a prayer. Either way, I’m out.

Developers, here’s how to generate ideas for your next side project

So you’re interested in software development? Then join our online event, TNW2020 , to explore the latest trends and emerging best practices in product development.

You’re sitting at your desk, searching for hours on the Holy Internet something you need. You want to create a superb product, or you want to improve some technical skills you lack for your dream job. You want to build a great personal project.

But you miss something. This is something simple but difficult to grasp. Something everybody speaks about, but only the chosen ones know its true meaning. Something almost magical.

You miss an idea .

After reading bland ideas after bland ideas on The Great Internet, you finally give up: you’re not a creative person. You don’t have great ideas. The world is torture. There will be always war and death. Everything is lost.

Maybe I can help you.

We have, all of us, creative possibilities. We are all humans, we have more or less the same brain, and we can all come up with ideas. Forget about this nonsense of “I’m born like that” or “I’m not good in this”. You create artificial borders to your own possibilities. You put yourself in an imaginary jail.

Lurking on Internet to find new ideas might not be the best solution to build your own personal ideas .

So many questions! So many doubts! Here’s the good news: building a software means automating something. You can automate a lot of things in many different domains. That’s precisely why I think you can generate many different ideas, for many different domains.

To learn how, here’s what we’ll see in this article:

What’s an idea?

Ideas will pop up if you maintain a balance between space and inspiration.

Dopamine is a powerful idea power

Follow me, dear reader. To be able to find great programming project ideas, we need first to go back to the basis. Sounds boring? It won’t take long. Then, we will dive into concrete ways to build a system to let your ideas blossom and mature.

What’s an idea?

Even if it looks like a silly question, you should consider it. Can you define what’s an idea?

Let’s look at the definition in a thing from the old ages called “dictionary.” From the Oxford one :

Now, that’s interesting. We could think that an idea is a pure construct of our minds. It’s only a mere thought, right? However, the definition suggests that it’s a special thought which takes “a possible course of action.”

We have a tendency to forget that an idea needs to be something we’re able to put into practice. It’s a thought which is actionable . In fact, can we say that an idea has value without any action? Is it what separates ideas and thought?

Let’s keep that in mind and add a level of complexity: most of us don’t only want ideas — we want a good one. What is that? Is it a big idea? A crazy one? The one with the biggest possible action?

A successful idea?

I think we’ll all agree that a good idea is an idea which fulfills our goals.

Of course, you will always have a feeling if this or that idea will indeed give you what you want. Don’t follow these feelings blindly.

Sometimes, ideas appear to us so good that we think it will automatically be appealing to everybody. Sometimes we think that an idea is the best, even if it doesn’t help us to achieve what we want.

On the contrary, sometimes we convince ourselves that an idea is bad because we’re afraid of failures.

All of that is perfectly normal. We are all human, we all have illusions and doubts.

If you want to know if your idea is a good one, you need to be a bit more pragmatic and test it, challenge it as early as you can, to know if it brings you closer to your goals.

In a programming or side project context, it could be a simple landing page asking if somebody else is interested in your idea. If your goal is to build an app that makes you rich and famous, other people need to buy what you want to sell. It could be an MVP or even a simple prototype.

Now that we all agree on what an idea and a good one is, let’s continue our journey.

Create space in your life

Let’s look at this simple but difficult question: how do ideas pop up in your head? You first need to let space in your mind to allow them to come to you.

What do I mean by space?

Since ideas are simple thoughts at first , something which “pop up” in your conscious mind, something you formulate with your language in your head, you need to allow your mind to speak to you.

Let’s say that you always listen to music, sing along, switch on the radio, Netflix, or Youtube, to have some background noises. Maybe you’re never alone and you always meet and speak to a lot of people.

All these external stimuli will monopolize your mind. You won’t have space for ideas to pop up.

Obviously, these strong stimuli can inspire you, but they can as well block any new idea if they never stop.

Let’s take another example: your phone. Applications are made for you to be addicted to them, for you to spend your time scrolling them indefinitely. You could think: “Right, but it’s so inspiring!” Is it?

It’s mainly the same content you will find on applications like Instagram, Twitter, and whatnot. Is it great content? Is it content that generates great ideas? Ideas are the result of our life, and if our life is spending our time on social media, our ideas will reflect that.

You need an external stimulus that is really interesting for you, to get inspired and having ideas you consider “good.” You need as well to be alone with your thoughts to create space in your mind for your ideas to express themselves.

You need to create a balance between inspiration and space.

Inspiration and ideas diversity

Being inspired means having feelings or new thoughts when an external stimulus comes to you. These feelings will generate ideas of any sort. The more diverse your inspiration will be, the more diverse your ideas will be. You need as well to be receptive to them when they come to you.

Inspiration can come from many things:

Speaking and, most important, listening to people.

Going to a museum or a botanical garden.

Looking around you and actively observing.

Reading books, articles…

Going for a movie.

Listening to music.

Meeting and speaking with people.

Dancing in your underpants.

Imitating the scream of a rabbit when he’s in love.

…

The common wisdom often whispers to us that to get inspiration, we need to read or watch something which is directly related to the ideas we want.

Let’s say you want to create software to improve some lacking development skills, but you have no idea what exactly. You might search on The Fantastic Internet what are the good software ideas out there. You might go to forums, speaking about software , or searching on Facebook for software related groups.

This is a mistake. Even if you can get inspiration from these places for sure, your ideas will feel fresher and newer if you try to get inspiration from the other different interests you have. This is really important for the actionable step of an idea: you will never achieve take action if an idea doesn’t interest you.

Remember what inspiration is? You need to be receptive to the things which surround you. To be receptive, you need to be interested in them.

You can find as well the Fairy of Idea Diversity when you go out of your routine. If you spend all your day on your computer, try to do something else from time to time. Routines and processes are great to get things done, but it doesn’t challenge your thoughts and generate new ideas.

It can be diversifying your activity, or simply working in another environment. Every change, even a small one, can be a real idea generator.

Dopamine and ideas

It has been proved that dopamine release helps to create ideas. Now, I got your attention. Science power!

How can you release this dopamine?

Sport is the way. It doesn’t have to be 8 hours straight of crazy intense sport which destroys your body for half a month. Stretching, running, or even walking can work. Only ten minutes of sport each day can help a lot.

Taking a warm shower. You know, the cliché about ideas in the shower. The explanation is finally revealed: dopamine.

Getting enough sleep. You won’t have any good idea if your brain tries to stay alive from all the toxins you didn’t eliminate by sleeping. Guaranteed.

Should I precise that drinking alcohol or taking drugs is not really advised to have good ideas? You can have a lot of bad ones, however. You know, the ones you regret later.

You might want to create space in these moments. For example, when I’m running or doing sport with music without lyrics, I find myself having more thoughts. You need to experiment, of course, to find what works for you.

Even without speaking about dopamine and all these scientific stuff (to a degree), the more awake and energized you will be, the more ideas will come to you.

Here’s a cool Latin sentence from Juvenal:

If it’s in Latin, it’s true.

The birth of your own idea system

You can have ideas everywhere, and especially when you don’t seek them. As The Oatmeal is saying in his really cool comic :

Each time you have an idea or an interesting thought, you need to be able to write it in your idea system. Yes, you need a system to write out your ideas.

David Allen, the author of Get Things Done wrote:

By writing your ideas somewhere, grouping them, connecting them, your idea flow will increase drastically.

First, your brain won’t have to keep up with this mental load of every single idea you have. Second, each time you will write an idea down, more thoughts and ideas will come back to you. Even better: review your idea system after a couple of days and BAM! More Ideas.

You will create the Virtuous Circle of Idea, you lucky idea powerhouse!

I would advise you to write every idea, even the ones you consider bad. A bunch of bad ideas can create a good one if you give it some time. Don’t be too judgemental. Little, silly, or apparently stupid ideas can be the foundation of your next project.

You need to categorize and organize them on a regular basis in your idea system.

Don’t hesitate to cut out some ideas as well. Bad ideas can generate good ideas, that’s true, but bad ideas you still find bad after days need to be relentlessly hunted and eliminated from the surface of Earth.

Don’t be sentimental and press this delete button. Ideas you generate are yours, that’s true, but they are not you . You don’t delete a part of yourself.

This is the principle of brainstorming: writing every thought you have, even bad ones, to refine and refine them, till you find the really good ideas; the ones you like, the ones which will bring value to your life.

In short, with this kind of system, my life is a massive brainstorming experiment where I write ideas on a regular basis. It’s a never-ending and deeply enjoyable process.

A real-life example of an idea system

Do you want to know how my idea system looks like? No? How dare you?

It’s pretty simple, really. First, I need to have constant access to my “idea bag.” It’s where I throw ideas when I have them.

Directly when I have them. Don’t wait too long before writing them somewhere! Your ideas are like little clouds, they can disappear from your conscious mind as fast as they appeared. There are exceptions to this rule: if you’re driving a car, hunting crocodiles, or purchased by some Yakuza, don’t do anything else than trying to survive.

Since I own an Android phone which follows me wherever I go (without any social media on it, you should try, it’s liberating), I use Google Keep to write any idea I have. Good or bad.

Why Google Keep?

It’s simple to use

I can access it on any computer, on my tablet, or on my phone.

Every week, the Saturday morning to be precise, I empty my idea bag and I put them in my mind map for ideas.

When I do so, it’s a good occasion for me to quickly delete ideas, or to reorganize them. Often, I find a new link between ideas.

As the famous visionary philanthropist marketing guru, Steve Jobs, said:

Here’s what my mindmap looks like:

I write mindmaps with the free software Freemind , and I sync them with my personal Nextcloud instance, on my server. I can then access them on any computer.

Unfortunately, you can’t read them well on tablets or phones, and you can’t modify them on these devices. If you’re interested in mindmaps and if you want to read them everywhere, there is plenty of software for that .

Over time, the ideas I link in my mindmap begin to take the shape of the project: software, books, courses, and so on.

When the programming project is well defined enough, I create a Trello board . When I have any idea related to this new project, I write it directly into this board.

There is a last important component in my system, complementary with Google Keep: post-it. I have a block of post-it in strategic places in my flat, in case I have an idea and I don’t have my phone with me. I write it and put it on my desk.

Since I don’t like to have a post-it on my desk, I write them in my Idea Mindmap as soon as I can. It’s a good way to oblige myself to keep my ideas in one place.

This whole system is simple and effective, and it has been very useful for me to grow my idea bag. Take this blog for example: before I had my Miraculous Idea System ©, I could barely find subjects to write about. Each time I was going on my computer, I was waiting to be illuminated by the Angel of Ideas, The God of Creation, The Muse of Inspiration.

It didn’t work.

Now I have so many ideas for blog posts, I can write for years. I could say the same for side projects, for books, and for many other projects. It’s great!

The most important is: these are my ideas. They are the result of a lot of stuff I saw and experienced, and I’m sure none of them are original. Still, they are the end of a personal process. Therefore, I’m way more motivated to execute them. To take action.

Being interested is essential if you want to have the motivation to begin, go through, and push live the programming projects of your dreams!

Ideas and the others

Parking your ideas in your little idea universe (whatever it is: a mindmap, a simple notebook, or a set of napkins) is very good to let them blossom, but there is another effective way to generate more ideas: speaking about them.

Writing your ideas makes them real. They are not pure thoughts anymore. Speaking with people about your ideas will make them even more concrete. People can react to them, adding thoughts to your ideas, transform them.

You don’t have to speak physically to people, even if I think it’s even more effective. You can use any platform where you can have constructive discussions on the Internet. This can bring a lot of new components to your ideas, and people can help you link (or unlink) them for you to accomplish your goals.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid of negative feedback. You need all of that, or you will stick with ideas you’re the only one to find “good.” If your goal is to bring people to your programming project, or, even better, if you want to create a revenue stream with your project, you need to know your audience and validate your ideas. Even before beginning to build your side project itself.

This kind of project always involves people. All the time. Because they will use what you build.

Creating a revenue stream from side projects is a complex question that goes beyond the scope of this article. “Comment below” if somebody wants me to gabble about it in an article, one day.

Get inspired and grasp these killer ideas!

Many things can benefit from a new piece of software. That’s why you should not limit your ideas to some precise field or interest. We can build software for anybody who needs some automation.

Let’s do a little debriefing: what did we learn together in this article?

Ideas are thoughts that are actionable . Ideas without actions won’t bring you much.

A good idea is an idea which brings you closer to your goal . Yep, you need to define what you want in life.

Be inspired by the things which really interest you , but plan some quiet moments for your brain to relax and let your ideas speak to you.

Create your own idea system where all your ideas will coexist in peace. Catch them quickly!

If some ideas feel useless after some time, delete them. Reorganize the others. Make sure you’re not overwhelmed each time you open your idea system.

What I would like you to do is to get this article as an inspiration, and experiment for yourself. We are all different, you need to adapt and see what works for you.

Now, it’s time to go to the world and get inspiration from everything you like, and everything you didn’t know you liked before you tried them. The goal is to create more ideas, to build more valuable goods, and to have fun!

This article was written by Matthieu Cneude and was originally published on The Valuable Dev , a blog focusing on the important and timeless concepts in software development. You can read the piece here .

The not-so-secret secret to successful flexible work strategies

We’re now in what many refer to as “the Great Resignation.” In a recent survey, one in four UK workers said they planned to change jobs in the next few months. In September 2021 alone, the US Department of Labor reported a record 4.4m people quit their jobs, a trend that echoes globally.

And while many pundits and HR experts are rushing to explain its origins, there remains the simple fact that work has changed. Rules around office mandates, and even offices themselves, are being adapted to a new breed of workers who want flexibility, control, and safety.

Employers who provide greater flexibility could gain a major advantage in the talent war. According to Otto Verhage, COO of recruitment tool TestGorilla :

“A greater number of applicants will be looking for hybrid working in the wake of Covid-19: it’s been proven that the economy won’t fall apart if people work from home part-time, and some employees who had never previously worked flexibly have seen how beneficial it can be.”

But, while this new way of flexible working is good for individuals, it could spell trouble for teams and companies that fail to adjust, and lose talent as a result. Research shows that 65% of employees feel less connected to their coworkers .

“People are losing their attachment to their team, their peers, and their company. The purpose of a workplace is to bring people together to remind them of the mission, the culture, and the values of a company, and be surrounded by other people that believe the same thing,” says Larry Gadea, CEO and Founder of workplace platform Envoy .

It’s clear employees want flexibility but also need the right incentives to stay for the long haul — so how can companies get the best of both worlds?

We had a chat with the founders of Envoy and TestGorilla to find out.

Make office time about collaboration and team building

For Gadea, team building moments should be purposely programmed into your organization. Less time in the office means that time is more valuable, and should be first and foremost used for collaboration and team bonding.

“Getting teams together for more than zero days a week is very important,” Gadea tells TNW.

It’s also about employee wellbeing. In the vast majority of workplace surveys that have come out during the pandemic, the thing people missed most was the informal chats with colleagues. In many cases, this led to detachment from the team and the company. In extreme cases, this led to feelings of loneliness and depression.

Spend more time on onboarding

While some will have talent jumping ship left and right, for others it’ll be a golden opportunity to snatch up experienced talent looking for work that suits their lifestyle. Always keeping an eye on the latest job market trends, Verhage and his team at Test Gorilla have seen how this is reshaping recruitment efforts:

This is helping candidates to quickly filter through and discard job opportunities, but it also opens employers up to a much wider pool of talent:

However, while the potential for free and flexible work arrangements may be a great tool for attracting talent, actually keeping that talent is another story. Without a connection to the team or a company’s mission, the difference between one remote job and another is simply down to a difference in paycheck.

A study by Better Up found that a stronger sense of belonging can lead to a 56% increase in job performance, 75% reduction in sick days, and a 50% lower turnover risk .

For Verhage, the key to fostering a sense of belonging amongst remote and hybrid employees is having a strong onboarding process in place. As he explained, at TestGorilla, they have a full remote program in place to welcome new hires into their team:

Make it easy for teams to schedule in-office time

Two of the biggest challenges companies face with hybrid work are how to provide employees the flexibility of coming to the office when they need to, and how to provide them with the right tools when they’re there.

As more teams turn to flexible working, more companies are replacing permanent desks with hot desks that can be reserved in advance. Hotdesking, the sharing of desks, can provide significant savings on office space for those who decide to downsize, but can also come with headaches for managers and individuals who want to schedule in team building time.

One of the biggest pain points for employees is making the effort to commute in and showing up to an empty office. According to Gadea:

Another common challenge businesses today are facing as they reopen is how to keep workers safe.

A survey by Envoy found 43% of office workers, either hybrid or full-time, are more worried about exposure to and transmission of Covid than remote workers. For employees of color, 21% lose sleep over it compared to just 11% of their white coworkers.

Envoy Protect is a solution that allows employees to get an overview of who is working in the office and when so they can sync work schedules and optimize time in the office. They can also reserve workspace and, most importantly, certify health status. Users can upload proof of vaccination, a weekly negative Covid test, or a daily health check.

While the uncertainty of flexible work schedules may hold some companies back, the beauty of this new way of working is that it gives your company more flexibility to adapt in uncertain times — and today there’s nothing more important than that. In truth, the not-so-secret secret to flexible work strategies is simply being flexible enough to experiment and find out what works best for your team.