You are spending too much time on Medium!

Summary

The article emphasizes the importance of managing time effectively on Medium to avoid mental exhaustion and maintain a balance between online engagement and real-life interactions.

Abstract

The author of the article warns against the excessive consumption of content on Medium, highlighting that while the platform can be a source of followers and income, spending too much time on it can lead to mental and emotional depletion. The piece argues that time is an irreplaceable asset and that the quality of time spent should be prioritized over quantity. It suggests that readers and writers on Medium should focus on their passion and storytelling rather than chasing virality or market trends. The article provides five practical tips for improving time quality: setting time limits for platform engagement, valuing family and friends, reducing meeting times, maintaining physical health, and embracing solitude for mental clarity. The author concludes by urging readers to recognize the importance of time and to protect it against the distractions of the internet.

Opinions

Endless content consumption on Medium can lead to a loss of personal judgment and conditioning that detracts from one's original skills and goals.
Time spent on Medium should be balanced with other life priorities, such as family, friends, and personal health.
The value of time is underscored by its irreversible nature; once lost, it cannot be regained.
Quality time management is crucial for achieving one's ultimate goals, whether as a writer or an avid reader.
The article challenges the notion that more time spent on Medium equates to greater success, advocating for intentional and limited engagement.
The author suggests that the pursuit of success on Medium should not overshadow the importance of genuine passion and curiosity.
The article promotes the idea that meaningful interactions and personal well-being are more important than the quantity of content consumed or produced.
It is the individual's responsibility to manage their time wisely and to not fall into the trap of being busy for the sake of it.

Don’t end up mentally exhausted!

Time is your ultimate asset. I have come across many articles saying that the more time you spend on Medium, the more followers you get and the more money you make. Like always, there is some amount of truth to this. However, if you are spending too much time reading how to gain followers or how to make money, you defeated your purpose of becoming a writer or an avid reader in the first place.

Picture by the author from Canva

The problem with consuming content on Medium endlessly will eat your time and rob you of mentally and emotionally. Your judgment will become clouded, and your inherent skills become conditioned as you now have to keep up with the content you involuntarily embedded into your system.

“TIME ISN’T THE MAIN THING. ITS THE ONLY THING.” — Miles Davis

To know the importance of time,

Ask students about the importance of the time when they fail a test.

Ask the importance of time to someone who is preparing to pass the biggest interview in their life.

Ask the importance of time to an Olympic runner who prepares himself for the biggest competition of his life.

Ask the cancer patient about the importance of the time when he is told that he does not have much time to live.

This article is for people who have a story to tell irrespective of the virality or relevance of the topic to present market trends. Sure, you can reach some level of success by following the methods to gain followers or prescriptions for making money but your instinct and genuine passion and curiosity should take over with quality time management to reach your ultimate goal.

Here are 5 ways you can improve your quality of time:

Set time limits: allocate the total time you spend on Medium reading stuff about your favorite topics and authors. I would say 1 hour daily is sufficient enough to engage with the platform, and any time spent after that will not add value to your time as your attention span will decline. You end up just consuming unnecessary stuff and putting it into your system.

Family and Friends: these people will be the essential cogwheel of your life. Frankly, whatever you earn in life won’t make sense if you don’t have family and friends to share it with.

Meetings: Post pandemic, all the working-class people, end up losing time. If you think you are not adding value to the meeting or getting any knowledge out of that particular meeting, cut short your meetings to phone calls, phone calls to email, and emails to a simple text message.

Physical health: Eat clean and train hard. A sound mind in a sound body, right! No amount of money or doctors can take care of your body. Ultimately it’s you who should be responsible for your own body. I would say do some exercise at least 3x weekly.

Alone time: this is where spirituality gets cluttered, and some of the gurus have hijacked the English language in the form of meditation. You got to figure it out yourself. Meditation, in simple terms, is the art of doing nothing. Sometimes a 10-minute walk in your garden will help declutter your mind and enables you to focus on the crucial aspects. There are no particular methods to follow, or no amount of prescriptions will help you attain peace.

Conclusions:

Most of us are busy being busy. One should learn the importance of time and its value of it. Time lost can never be regained. Although there are endless ways to engage yourself on the internet in this day and age, it is the duty of the rational person to safeguard time.

Please let me know in the comments on how you can improve your quality of time.