I love Facebook, though I will confess there was a time when I pretty much ignored it. However, the romance has rekindled and it has become once again a daily part of my life.

I know that not everyone likes Facebook and even I don’t like everything about it. I know people who have closed their accounts because it became such a negative experience. I’ve also had some experience in that regard. However, I have found it you take a few thoughtful steps, it can change your experience.

Try the following and let me know if it makes any difference

1. Curate Your Feed

You have quite a lot of control over what you see. When you like a page, click on the Like Button and it gives you the option to See First or Default.

See first will put it at the top of your feed and they will have a small blue start to show they are one of your priority items. This means that you see first the things you are more interested in seeing. People you like, news feeds, etc

Additionally, you can see less of some things without unfollowing them entirely. Have a friend that you don’t want to upset by unfriending but you just aren’t interested in seeing their every thought or every meal they ate (something I am guilty of). One of their posts, click the small arrow on the right 9see image above).

The menu below will appear. This allows you to both de-prioritise a feed OR if you Choose Hide Post, you will see fewer posts. I have found that sometimes you need to select it on a couple of different days as it will de-prioritise in increments and if the feed you are reducing posts often, it may take a couple of tries.

Just these small changes will have an impact on your experience.

2. Eliminate the negative

This one is a pretty easy and common sense point. Stop following pages that promote negativity. Unfriend or at least stop following the posts of negative friends.

Reduce the number of news pages you are following. I’m not one to suggest you be ignorant of what is going on in the world but you don’t need to see 100 posts on the latest tragedy. Choose one or two reputable news sites and stick with those.

Don’t engage on those controversial posts that have all the commenters insulting each other. You can usually tell by the post where it’s going to have the audience divided.

Look at what you are posting yourself. Do you complain a lot? Are you annoyed a lot? What are you putting out there? What are you consuming?

Try a few of those pages that find good news stories and follow them. let them lift your day.

3. Connect with Facebook Groups

There are thousands of Facebook groups. That’s both a good thing and a bad thing. There are many, many groups covering a lot of different topics. They can be both a time drain and a great source of information. Pick your groups carefully. Most groups won’t tolerate insulting, lots of self-promotion or lack of tolerance but there are some that are set up just to complain.

Test drive your groups, participate but don’t spend all of your time in there socialising.

4. Limit your Time

Have you ever been browsing Facebook and suddenly a couple of hours have gone by? It’s happened to me more than once. Decide the times you will spend on Facebook. Decide why you are there. Are you catching up with what friends are up to? Is it part of your business strategy? Are you looking for news? Deciding why you are there, will help focus which parts of Facebook you are spending your time on.

Having a curated feed will also help you with limiting your time. If the things you want to see are first in your feed, once you go past them you know you are just browsing.

I hope you found this useful. You can also follow my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/sharonluttrellofficial for more tips and information. Don’t forget to click and set me as First in your feed!