Can Less (Time Online) Be More?

Given my company is focused on helping start-ups improve how they market and communicate online, spending a lot of time on the Web is an occupational hazard. I probably spend 50 to 60 hours/week online, depending on how much work needs to be done.

I really enjoy my work, as well as everything the Web has to offer (e.g. entertainment, content, etc.) but I’ve been questioning whether I actually need to spend less time on the Web. It may sound like a strange proposition but it’s based on the idea of trying to be more efficient and productive – aka doing the same of work but taking less time to do it – while spending more time on other things such as family, friends, reading, television and other interests.

The two areas where I can definitely improve time-wise are e-mail and social media. Like a lot of people, I’m constantly monitoring my inbox – whether I’m at the office or on the road using an iPhone. While it’s good to stay abreast of what’s going on, particularly when you’re in a customer service-oriented business, the inbox also sucks up a lot of time. Clearly, the the solution is being more disciplined – checking once an hour as opposed to once every 10 minutes.

The another time-suck target is social media, particularly Twitter, which is an invaluable tool for lots of reasons but, again, can easily consume too much time. In some respects, Twitter is like TV; you start with the intent of watching for short period of time for information or entertainment, but before you know it, you’re a couch potato (a Twitter tomato?)

While we’re at it, blogging is also something I’m trying to get a better handle on time-wise. For now, I write three blogs – Mark Evans Tech, Twitterrati and All About Nortel. Since I write them on a regular basis, they capture a lot of time.

It’s made me wonder whether trying to write every day is a good or necessary thing. Maybe it’s better to write on a less regular basis but do better posts. The other side of the coin is that my blogs are also my business cards so it’s a good thing to have a steady flow of fresh content.

While I’ve been thinking about how much time I spend on the Web for awhile, the concept really took hold after reading a story in the New York Times Sunday Magazine by Peggy Orenstein, who argued that spending less time online could help us be more creative because it gives us and our brains more time to think as opposed to consuming digital bits and bytes.

The last two paragraphs from Orenstein’s story hammer home her thinking:

“It could be that sometimes our greatest freedom may be to choose freedom from freedom. I am still surprised by the relief that floods me whenever I bind myself from going online, when I have no option but to ignore the incessant tweets and e-mail messages and videos and news links and even the legitimate research.

I’m not wishing the Internet away. It has become so integral to my work — to my life— that I honestly can’t recall what I did without it. But it has allowed us to reflexively indulge every passing interest, to expect answers to every fleeting question, to believe that if we search long enough, surf a little further, we can hit the dry land of knowing “everything that happens” and that such knowledge is both possible and desirable. In the end, though, there is just more sea, and as alluring as we can find the perpetual pursuit of little thoughts, the net result may only be to prevent us from forming the big ones.”