When I started hopping around on blogs I realized that Coco is writing down her media consumption even day. I was intrigued and wondered what min was. So I decided to track that for one week to get an overview.
Monday
Books: 55 min – Thornhedge by Kingfisher
Blogs: total: 167 minutes | 5 min blog writing – this post | 37 min answering blog comments | 125 minutes reading & commenting on blogs
Podcasts: 15 min while walking outside
TV: 45 min (Body of Proof) while having dinner
Social Media: 39 min including quickly checking accounts I run as a social media manager
Duolingo: 3 minutes – to keep my streak
Tuesday
Books: 78 min – Thornhedge by Kingfisher, finished
Blogs: total: 128 minutes | 5 min blog writing – this post | 23 min answering blog comments | 100 minutes reading & commenting on blogs
Podcasts: 15 min while having lunch
TV: 30 min (LOL) while having dinner
Social Media: 60 min incl. some work stuff but not as much as I should have
Duolingo: 16 min
Wednesday
Books: total: 35 min| 20 min – The Shape of Ideas, 15 min – You absence is darkness
Blogs: total: 155 minutes | 5 min blog writing – this post | 44 min answering blog comments | 106 minutes reading & commenting on blogs
Podcasts: 60 min – two podcasts while having lunch and walking to the mailbox
TV: 45 min (Body of Proof) while having dinner
Social Media: 60 min incl. 30+ minutes work related
Duolingo: 8 min – to keep my streak
Thursday
Books: 50 min – magazine about antisemitism & annual report of GVFD
Blogs: total: 137 minutes | 25 min blog writing | 14 min answering blog comments | 98 minutes reading & commenting on blogs
Podcasts: 25 min during lunch
TV: 20 mins – House Hunting Bahamas
Social Media: 46 minutes including some work stuff
Duolingo: 7 min – to keep my streak
Friday
Books: 12 minutes magazine about antisemitism
Blogs: total: 184 minutes
Podcasts: 60 minutes
TV: 20 mindest – first episode of shrinking
Social Media: 29 minutes
Duolingo: 5 minutes – to keep the streak
Saturday
Books: none
Blogs: total: 51 minutes | 20 min blog writing | 19 min answering blog comments | 12 minutes reading & commenting on blogs
Podcasts: none
TV: none
Social Media: 5 minutes
Duolingo: 2 minutes – to keep the streak
Sunday
Books: none
Blogs: total: 407 minutes | 140 min blog writing | 22 min answering blog comments | 235 minutes reading & commenting on blogs
Podcasts: none
TV: 125 minutes – three episodes or Arc
Social Media: 28 minutes
Duolingo: 4 minutes – to keep the streak
This was an experiment to see how my media consumption is divided. I think I did a rather detailed count of my minutes – with the help of screen time tracking on my phone. The laptop work I tried to scribble down on my own (is there screen time tracking for the laptop?).
Here is an entire overview of the week
Books: total: 180 minutes | 3 hours
Blogs: total: 1.232 minutes | 20 hours 32 minutes
Podcasts: total: 205 minutes | 3 hours 25 minutes
TV: total: 285 minutes | 4 hours 45 minutes
Social Media: total: 267 minutes | 4 hours 27 minutes
Duolingo: total: 45 minutes
I am rather surprised about how low my social media consumption is. I do take care of three client accounts. While I schedule the posts on a monthly or weekly basis through apps on my laptop one clients (you know which ne) is not having this kind of proefional infrastructure and I need to manually upload. However there were not many posts to upload so it was a really low week. The community management this week – which I do mainly for instagram through my phone was low too. And I handled some comments the Facebook business manager. I had assumed I do more client work. So all the consumption is on me and my scrolling habits. I have a limit set to 30 min on weekdays, 60 minutes on Saturday and 1 min on Sunday. Often enough I extend that limit but it gives some indicator where I am at with my consumption.
I also have a time limit for Duolingo (15 minutes) but mainly to see if I can reach it. This one will always be put into unlimited access after that. I do not have restrictions on libby, overcast (podcast), kindle. Reading is also not shut down at 11 pm for sleep time. Reading is allowed and encouraged at all times.
Do you know how your media consumption is? Is there something I should have tracked? Is there something that would look totally different for you? Any app that is skyrocketing for you? How much time blogging, commenting do you spend?
30 comments
How fascinating. I have absolutely no idea what my consumption is. Well, that’s strictly not true. I know how much I read, and I read a lot. I read a bit of my book(s) daily. I also write blog posts and spend a good deal of time visiting other blogs and leaving comments. I also might do an hour or two some evenings on specific TV shows. But that’s about it.
It was a really interesting experiment.
I mainly realized I many times I do things just for 3 or 7 minutes which made this whole tracking really time consuming.
Reading is always an ok for me when it comes to media consumption. And I am reading a lot with all the bio posts and magazine and books.
This month blogging is taking a lot more time…but I’m also not commenting on every post so I’m not feeling nearly as “burned out” as I did during the last NaBloPoMo.
It is totally fine to do what is working for you. I am putting a lot of effort into commenting and reading everyone’s post. I may not do it next year because it does take up a lot of time. We’ll see.
Interesting experiment! I’ve done similar things in the past in my bullet journal. If you do it again maybe calculate hours daily, snd track what’s work and what’s for your own entertainment? I mean social media work is a must, while social media scrolling is not and maybe what most of us try to limit these days.
Thank you for sharing!
I am not sure I would want to spend more time in tracking. This was so detailed. I often do social media works for clients and then a bit on my own accounts and then switch back. Tracking that would be a disaster. However I could be getting better in separating it.
And I do scrolling for inspirations sake but this quickly becomes pointless scrolling. It’s a tough line to walk.
This is really great, I love posts like this.
I won’t be able to keep this kind of record, just don’t have the brain space for it at the moment. But I’m happy to report that I have been reading my novel every night for.. I wanna say 30 minutes? Blog commenting probably 30 minutes per day since it’s NaBloPoMo. Blog writing probably 15 minutes per day.. and two movies this last weekend, so 3-4 hours of TV for two days. Honestly, I want to move away from my digital reader and onto physical books.
I love that you get to read daily in your busy schedule.
I wouldn’t want to get away from my kindle. I read so much more since I have that. I have been reading more physical books lately but I can’t read those at night and that is were I do lots of reading thanks to insomnia.
I have never done a tracking exercise like this. I suspect mine would be: Books – All the Time; Podcasts – A few minutes while walking the dog. And that’s that. LOL.
Well, I guess you don’t need to track anything then. You know its already.
This is interesting. Also I wonder what your blog time would look like in a non NaBloPoMo month. I can only guess mine at this point, but I rarely am on socials.
When I am on the bike all day, my day is like 6-8 hours of audiobooks (or sometimes 1-2 hours of podcasts also/instead), 0-30 mins blog reading/commenting/posting, and if I am out of service, 1-2 hours of ebook or if I am in service, maybe 1 hour of YouTube. No TV. (also IG about 15-30 mins per week)
When I am not riding, it is more like 1-2 hours audiobook/podcast, 1-2 hours blog reading/commenting/posting, 0-30 mins ebook, 30 mins Rummikub online, 1 hour YouTube, no TV. (also IG about 15-30 mins per week)
However! I am on my computer doing other work things – Excel, photos, journaling, travel research, etc. for probably at least 4 hours a day on top of all of that. So although that is not social, it is still sitting in front of a screen.
Oh, we are not talking about food screens because then I can add six or more hours at least. All my work is in front of the screen and all my private hobby like blogging, photography, and stuff like that is also in front of a screen. Outside of NaBloPoMo I usually only read blogs on Sunday sometime Saturday and I only blog on Sundays. I check my comments daily though, but I get a fraction of comments I get this month.
Your social media time is really low. I don’t think I could survive that even without work. But I envy your audiobook time so many things to go through.
I often think I will start tracking this, and then I either don’t, or I start and quickly forget to keep going. I also don’t count reading as screen time, although I do a lot of it on my ipad. Blog reading and commenting definitely goes up in November.
Yes, blog stuff in November is definitely not representative for the rest of the year. It was a fun exercise track everything but also very tedious to be honest, even though I had support of apps. I do a lot of reading on my Kindle and sometimes my phone and that is screen time. However I was tracking media consumption not screen time, screen time would be horrendously different.
I don’t track my media usage, I’m frightened to do that. I’m trying to do a media detox starting with my phone, but it’s hard right now because I’m caring for the baby and I have to have my phone next to me always so I can update the apps my daughter wants me to. It only takes a few seconds, but while I’m there holding and feeding the baby I find myself scrolling. So I’m working on finding other solutions. But my other stuff, like reading, blog writing/reading/commenting, etc., I have no idea. I also have school I should be working on, but I think that is acceptable.
As for tracking computer usage I have the same one on my phone and computer, BUT the computer only shows the browser I’m using and not what I’m spending all my time on while in that browser. I need to find something better. Anyone have any advice?
That is a tricky part that you take your phone to do one thing and then you find yourself scrolling for half an hour and not remembering why you first took the phone. At least that is happening to me.
Yes, it would be interesting to see where the time is spend when on the computer, but I’m also afraid what that would tell me, all the best with your phone. I’m sure you’ll find a way.
This is fascinating! I have done similar experiences with just logging my reading or podcast time, but not ALL of my media consumption at once. I might have to try this sometime (maybe not during NaBloPoMo when things are extra crazy). 20.5 hours in blogging time is WILD.
I know I was surprised by the blogging number two. Specially, since I had most of the blog posts for me pre-written so I just had to finish things up. It was definitely a fun experience but just like tracking money spendings this is something I wouldn’t want to do every day.
So blogging this month is a part time job, if you spent 20 hours a week on it. WOW. NaBloPoMo is no joke.
That was my thought when I saw the number. Definitely a time invest, but I love doing it.
I do not keep track of this! I know I listen to a lot of podcasts, because I listen to them in the car and while working out. And, this month my blogging time is way up and my reading time is down (sadly.) But that’s just for NaBloPoMo. I wonder how much time I’m spending on blogs these days (reading, writing, commenting, answering comments…) It’s a LOT.
It’s definitely a lot of time we’re on blogs this month. I’m OK for switching book reading time and focusing on blog reading.
I don’t keep track of it either but I am not surprised you spend so much time on blogs this week. I had the feeling it was something like that but having the numbers written out make me feel a little better about not being able to keep up ;)
It’s definitely a lot. I could not keep this up permanently.
Ahm no, I have not tracked my media consumption but I am not surprised blogging has been taking up so much of your time this month! :) I mean, it’s NaBloPoMo after all and I love that you’ve been making time for reading/commenting and creating some awesome content!!
I love NaBloPoMo but it is a lot. I’ve been doing well until the 13th and now I am falling behind with 50 unread posts. Maybe I can catch up on the weekend.
I would like to track my screen time at some stage like you have. But maybe after NaBloPoMo so that it gives me a better reflection of what a normal month is like.
That would be a very smart idea. November is not very representative.
Maybe tracking 1 random month each year would give me enough info as a frame of reference. November has been much higher blogging time. To clarify, I think writing time is similar but the increase is in reading/receiving/commenting on blogs. (outside this challenge I usually get very few comments). On my list would also be Reddit because I get lost in reading threads there. 🙃 and can get into rabbit holes of interesting topics.
Yes, the reading and commenting and replying to comments does take a lot of time. I usually don’t write block posts every day so this also takes more time for me. But I love doing it once a year and I’m looking forward to it already but I’m also glad we’re in the last stretch for now.