With so many family members and old friends signing up for Facebook I thought it might be time for a post on how to use Facebook without losing hours of your life that you’d rather be doing something else with (like using Twitter…?)
Plan to spend an hour or so for the initial setup. If you set thing up well at first Facebook become much less of a time-suck later on.
First Things First…
…sign up for an account. Why? Because your kids are there (but don’t expect to use Facebook as a way to spy on them, they’re too smart for that, might not accept your friend request and mostly text each other anyway.) Because your family members are there. (I’m connected to siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, my dad…) Because your old friends are there. (Tons of elementary and high school classmates, and friends I thought I’d lost touch with forever!)
Use your real name, and use a photo of yourself. I suggest a recent one, but I understand that you might feel more comfortable with an old school photo or one of you from 50 feet away.
In Account Settings, start with the basics when adding personal info, and don’t feel obligated to answer every question or fill in every blank. You’ll want to include your birthdate so people can flood your wall with birthday wishes (but it’s ok to leave the year off.) Listing the schools you went to will help old friends find you. List your current employer (or at least a brief description of what you do if, like many, you’re not sure you want the boss to find you on Facebook!) Only list your politics and religion if you don’t mind being judged by either one (because it happens.)
Privacy Settings are Awesome!
Once you’ve got the basic profile information set up, head right over to the Privacy Settings. Spend a little time here. For most of the Profile settings I suggest you stick with “Friends Only.” Since you have to explicitly choose who your friends are on Facebook, you know exactly who can see your information. The only options I leave more open are Friends, which I set to Everyone, and Wall Posts, which I leave open to Friends of Friends. You also probably want to tick the box that lets Friends post to your wall. Go with what makes you most comfortable here, you can always make changes later. You can fine-tune privacy settings once you add some friends, see below.
Notifications
This part is important if you want to spend the least amount of time yet get the full benefit of a Facebook account. Go through the list of notification options and choose “on” for each action you want to be sure not to miss. Facebook will send you an email for each one. Of course, your inbox will be flooded.
But not if you use filters or rules for your email. If you don’t already have rules set up in your email client to send messages directly into a folder (or a tag in the case of gmail) when they arrive, learn how (it will help you with far more than Facebook once you do!) Set up a rule that forces email from the facebookmail.com domain to skip your inbox and go right to a folder labeled Facebook (or whatever you like.) Now you can visit that folder at your leisure to see what your friends are up do. You may not even need to visit the site at all unless you want to respond.
Now Go Find People!
Search by name at first. Once you find a few people you know go through their friends lists to find other people you both know. Don’t feel like you have to friend every person on Facebook that you vaguely remember. Likewise, you don’t have to accept every friend request that comes your way. Just press ignore and be done with it. This is your club, you get to decide who joins. Personally I have a simple Facebook rule: I only add people I’ve had a conversation with, whether in real life or online. Create your own rules, or don’t .
As you start adding more people you’ll probably want to start sorting them into lists. Choose Friends from the top menu and you’ll see the option to “Make a New List” on the left. Lists give you more granular control over what you see and who sees you.
Maybe you want to keep a closer eye on your local friends than others. Set up a list of just those friends, then easily check their updates from your home page by choosing to see that list. Maybe you want to be connected to that guy you met at the gym that one time but you don’t want him to see all your Wall posts. You can set up a list containing that guy (and others like him) then by choosing Edit Custom Settings in the Privacy section you can block them from seeing parts of your profile.
A Word About Facebook Apps and Memes
Part of the fun on Facebook is trying the different third party applications (or apps.) Poking your friends is fun, but SUPERPOKING them is better. Right? Maybe. Recently there has also been a spurt of memes. A meme is basically a note that you personalize (Fifteen Things About Me for example) then tag some friends to do their own version.
Apps and memes are fun, but they can get overwhelming. In fact I think dealing with all the notifications from well-meaning friends can be the most time-sucking thing about Facebook.
Again, the ignore button is your friend, as are comments. Don’t want that “gift” someone sent you? Ignore. Don’t feel like coming up with fifteen things about you, but feeling grateful that a friend tagged you? Post a brief comment on her note and be done with it.
You’ll probably be invited to assorted groups, asked to become a “fan” of some Pages (which are profiles for celebrities, businesses, etc) and invited to events. Ignore if you want, accept if you want. (Note: generally in Facebook events a “Yes” is a maybe and a “Maybe” is a no. Just like real life.)
A Word About Facebook for Business
Just don’t. At least not with your personal profile. Go ahead and set up a Page for your business if you like, but use your personal profile for fun.
Less Time-Sucking
Now you’ve taken the time to read this (thank you!) and hopefully you’ve taken the time to set up your Facebook account. Now the rest is up to you. Despite all the suggestions above, it’s far too easy to spend hours clicking through Facebook, looking at friends’ profiles or playing with applications, and you may find that half your day has disappeared. This is where self-discipline comes in, and I’m afraid I might not be the person to help you with that. But I hope at least Facebook now looks a little less overwhelming and a lot more fun!
How does one set up the time zone for all messages and posts onto the Facebook walls, for mountain standard time? All my posting times are not set with my time zone.
I can't seem to find anything on Facebook about setting the time fo MST.
Thank you.
jsmith
When you hit ignore for a gift request, does it send a notification back to the person that sent it? I am a fan of DogWorld & get dozens of gifts a day. When I hit the accept gift button, it immediately open the DogWorld application. I just need it to open one time. The gifts that have been sent are already in the DogWorld application. So, I just want to hit accept once & ignore on the others to get rid of the notification. But I don't want it to stop other gifts from my teammates nor do I want it to notify them that I ignored their gift. So what's the answer?
Lots of good points, though one of the first things I did was turn OFF all the email notifications! I'd rather just see them when I log onto FB (and yes, I know how to use rules in Outlook).
Yeah, all this is about doing what works best for you of course. For some that means visiting less sites, for others it means fewer emails (and of course I know you know how to use rules ;).)
Great advice here. I think a lot of people will benefit from this post. As a matter of course, I block all application requests since they're written by third parties and I'd rather not give them access to my FB data. Oh that and they suck. . I wish FB has privacy setting that automatically shielded us from these intrusive programs but alas....
Making Facebook (Time) Suck Less
With so many family members and old friends signing up for Facebook I thought it might be time for a post on how to use Facebook without losing hours of your life that you’d rather be doing something else with (like using Twitter…?)
Plan to spend an hour or so for the initial setup. If you set thing up well at first Facebook become much less of a time-suck later on.
First Things First…
…sign up for an account. Why? Because your kids are there (but don’t expect to use Facebook as a way to spy on them, they’re too smart for that, might not accept your friend request and mostly text each other anyway.) Because your family members are there. (I’m connected to siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, my dad…) Because your old friends are there. (Tons of elementary and high school classmates, and friends I thought I’d lost touch with forever!)
In Account Settings, start with the basics when adding personal info, and don’t feel obligated to answer every question or fill in every blank. You’ll want to include your birthdate so people can flood your wall with birthday wishes (but it’s ok to leave the year off.) Listing the schools you went to will help old friends find you. List your current employer (or at least a brief description of what you do if, like many, you’re not sure you want the boss to find you on Facebook!) Only list your politics and religion if you don’t mind being judged by either one (because it happens.)
Privacy Settings are Awesome!
Once you’ve got the basic profile information set up, head right over to the Privacy Settings.
Spend a little time here. For most of the Profile settings I suggest you stick with “Friends Only.” Since you have to explicitly choose who your friends are on Facebook, you know exactly who can see your information. The only options I leave more open are Friends, which I set to Everyone, and Wall Posts, which I leave open to Friends of Friends. You also probably want to tick the box that lets Friends post to your wall. Go with what makes you most comfortable here, you can always make changes later. You can fine-tune privacy settings once you add some friends, see below.
Notifications
This part is important if you want to spend the least amount of time yet get the full benefit of a Facebook account. Go through the list of notification options and choose “on” for each action you want to be sure not to miss. Facebook will send you an email for each one. Of course, your inbox will be flooded.
But not if you use filters or rules for your email. If you don’t already have rules set up in your email client to send messages directly into a folder (or a tag in the case of gmail) when they arrive, learn how (it will help you with far more than Facebook once you do!) Set up a rule that forces email from the facebookmail.com domain to skip your inbox and go right to a folder labeled Facebook (or whatever you like.) Now you can visit that folder at your leisure to see what your friends are up do. You may not even need to visit the site at all unless you want to respond.
Now Go Find People!
Search by name at first. Once you find a few people you know go through their friends lists to find other people you both know. Don’t feel like you have to friend every person on Facebook that you vaguely remember.
Likewise, you don’t have to accept every friend request that comes your way. Just press ignore and be done with it. This is your club, you get to decide who joins. Personally I have a simple Facebook rule: I only add people I’ve had a conversation with, whether in real life or online. Create your own rules, or don’t 
.
As you start adding more people you’ll probably want to start sorting them into lists. Choose Friends from the top menu and you’ll see the option to “Make a New List” on the left. Lists give you more granular control over what you see and who sees you.
Maybe you want to keep a closer eye on your local friends than others. Set up a list of just those friends, then easily check their updates from your home page by choosing to see that list. Maybe you want to be connected to that guy you met at the gym that one time but you don’t want him to see all your Wall posts. You can set up a list containing that guy (and others like him) then by choosing Edit Custom Settings in the Privacy section you can block them from seeing parts of your profile.
A Word About Facebook Apps and Memes
Part of the fun on Facebook is trying the different third party applications (or apps.) Poking your friends is fun, but SUPERPOKING them is better. Right? Maybe. Recently there has also been a spurt of memes. A meme is basically a note that you personalize (Fifteen Things About Me for example) then tag some friends to do their own version.
Apps and memes are fun, but they can get overwhelming. In fact I think dealing with all the notifications from well-meaning friends can be the most time-sucking thing about Facebook.
Again, the ignore button is your friend, as are comments. Don’t want that “gift” someone sent you? Ignore. Don’t feel like coming up with fifteen things about you, but feeling grateful that a friend tagged you? Post a brief comment on her note and be done with it.
You’ll probably be invited to assorted groups, asked to become a “fan” of some Pages (which are profiles for celebrities, businesses, etc) and invited to events. Ignore if you want, accept if you want. (Note: generally in Facebook events a “Yes” is a maybe and a “Maybe” is a no. Just like real life.)
A Word About Facebook for Business
Just don’t. At least not with your personal profile. Go ahead and set up a Page for your business if you like, but use your personal profile for fun.
Less Time-Sucking
Now you’ve taken the time to read this (thank you!) and hopefully you’ve taken the time to set up your Facebook account. Now the rest is up to you. Despite all the suggestions above, it’s far too easy to spend hours clicking through Facebook, looking at friends’ profiles or playing with applications, and you may find that half your day has disappeared. This is where self-discipline comes in, and I’m afraid I might not be the person to help you with that. But I hope at least Facebook now looks a little less overwhelming and a lot more fun!