How to quit Facebook in 8 easy steps. - ⚡️Kristen Kalp

How to quit Facebook in 8 easy steps.

First, listen to this episode of That’s What She Said and see if you’d like to quit Facebook or if it just sounds like the answer to all your problems because you’re tired and grumpy. 😉

If yes, let’s be crystal clear about why you’d like to quit. You’ll need these reasons later when you’re tempted to go back and ‘just check in.’

Quit Facebook Step #1: Record your reasons for quitting.

Is Facebook treating you like an abusive partner, with 85% suckage and 15% awesomeness? Is it scooping up your free time and shortening your attention span?  Does it contribute to your feelings of overwhelm?  Is it a feed that’s forcing you to consume vitriol, hatred, impatience, anger, and spite? Do you want to go deeper into your own inner knowing and therefore, require a lessening of noise and chatter? All of the above?

Writing your reasons down means you won’t be all, OH GOD FACEBOOK WAS A DREAMY LOVELY THING AND IT BROUGHT ME NOTHING BUT GOODNESS six months from now.

Record the way it actually is, in this moment, and the reasons you’re quitting.

Quit Facebook Step #2: Choose an exit date.

Choose a Fexit — Facebook Exit — date and put it on your calendar.

You can do this without wailing and gnashing of teeth – though if the wailing and gnashing help, awesome.  Go for it. (I quit on June 1st, the Thursday after my birthday. Because quitting things is for Thursdays.)

Quit Facebook Step #3: Alert your family, friends, fans, and followers of your Fexit date.

If you’ve got a business, this means getting peeps from your Facebook fan page onto your e-mail list. A simple Facebook ad targeted at getting your fans to click over to an opt-in page should do the trick!

If you’re leaving friends and family members that you only speak to via the platform, this means getting e-mail addresses, snail mail addresses, and telephone numbers so you can stay in touch.

Quit Facebook Step #4: Choose the actions you’ll take in the meantime.

Will you be filling your Facebook time with making time? Napping time? Volunteer time? Writing time, work time, e-mail time, or childcare time? How will you use the time you’re gaining in a positive way?

Do you know that while you yearn to express yourself someone else yearns to bear witness to that expression? — Rochelle Schieck, Qoya

Will you be offering a special leaving-Facebook promo offer? (Here’s how to make a promo that sells like gangbusters.)

Will you take up a hobby, do more yoga, or write a book?  Having activities and projects to look forward to will make the transition easier.

Quit Facebook Step #5: Stay on it.

You’ll be tempted to make a single I QUIT announcement and then step away from the platform entirely, but you’ll need to repeat your plans over and over and over again. You want to make damn sure that every single one of your fans and followers knows you’re leaving, so they’d best get on your e-mail list to keep in touch. This will feel repetitive and dull. I know.

Stay on it.

Deep is so un-American now, even radical. We live too often like water skeeters on the surface of the pond, dropping down for a quick bite of insect or e-mail. Deep is the realm of soul. — Anne Lamott, Hallelujah Anyway

Quit Facebook Step #6: Plan a celebration.

Instead of quitting Facebook with a whimper, choose a tangible way to celebrate your exit. What would be the most fun way to leave? With a sale on everything you offer? With cake and confetti and a Facebook Live sendoff? With an in-person celebration in your backyard?

Make it so.

Quit Facebook Step #7: Tell everyone about the celebration.

In my case, it was Fexit Day!  I shared some thoughts about leaving, threw some celebratory confetti, and had a coaching call raffle.

Using FB to promote your exit is funny and ironic, plus it means people will actually see you leave and so you’ll be even less tempted to return in order to save yourself the embarrassment of going back on your word. (This is part of the plan.)

Quit Facebook Step #8: Quit.

Delete that shiz and move on. (Make sure you’ve backed up your data if you can’t bear to leave your photos and the like behind.)

The only way to do better, to have better, is to lose pieces of what was. It’s inevitable that you can’t bring everything with you, like carrying water in your cupped hands from one river to another. There are too many cracks, and if you’re so eager to move, you’ll just have to get used to new water. — Scaachi Koul, One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter

P.S.  Here’s what happened after I quit Facebook, because WOW it was awesome.