How I completely re-organized my Twitter Feed

It started with two simple tweaks

A couple of months ago, I went on a rather large decluttering spree across all of my social media channels.

On Instagram (my most active channel), I started looking at the people I was following and thinking deeply about the value they provided. From following over a 1000 people 3 months ago, I now follow just a little over 100 folks.

As to why I did this?

Truth: I’ve moved away from using Instagram as a personal album; it’s now a great way for me to network with people in my niche and connect with my ideal clients.

This, of course, wasn’t without its share of blowbacks. I had one follower send me an accusatory screenshot of my ‘unfollowing’ her on the app while another ranted about ungrateful people on her grid.

You win some, you lose some. It’s part of the game.

But the very fact that I’d managed to do it gave me a sort of secret thrill and more importantly, an assurance that I was doing the right thing. It was time to take back control of my social media feeds and allow myself a more intentional usage of these platforms.

After following a similar culling process on LinkedIn, where I went from having over 780 connections to less than 400 now, I turned my attention to Twitter.

Now, on Twitter, the dynamic is slightly shifted in terms of following/unfollowing. While nobody would really know if you unfollowed them on Instagram or Linkedin (unless they used a third-party app), on Twitter, you are more likely to know about it.

Why?

Because next to their name is an indicator of whether or not the person you follow is following you.

Granted that people probably have more things to worry about than whether or not you’re following them; but this is social media, so there’s a higher chance of turning people off and being in the doghouse because of clicking that ‘unfollow’ button.

Tweak 1: An extension that made the difference

While I debated on how best to do this, I came across this fabulous Chrome extension called the ‘Twitter Timeline Eradicator’.

After installing it, this is how my Twitter home page looks:

Why I did this: I really wanted to take back control of my attention and my Twitter home feed was causing me to go down the rabbit hole even if I came there for just 5 minutes.

But then, what about the people I was following? How would I get updates from them?

Fun fact: I actually decluttered that number too, down to 78 people or so. But installing the extension meant I couldn’t see their updates either.

Tweak 2: Enter ‘Lists’

Lists are these magical things that you can create on Twitter which allow you to selectively add handles to specific interest groups that you make.

You can either follow existing lists created by other people or create public/private lists of your own.

This way, when you add people to these lists and select that specific list, you only get to see updates from that group of people.

Here are my lists:

Verdict

My intention with this practice was to use my limited time on Twitter to engage wholly with the ideas and people that mattered to my current state of mind.

Doing this also ensured that I wasn’t aimlessly scrolling the Twitter black hole (I don’t use the app in any case) and I was still able to spend my daily Twitter quota in a way that could truly benefit my personal growth.

*If you’d like a step by step approach to decluttering your own social media channels, this post may help.