Cleaning up Your Facebook

Feeling a bit overwhelmed by Facebook these days? Too many negative influences, pages you’ve liked or friends you never really talk to? Here are some steps I took to clean up my Facebook.

1. Unlike any unnecessary pages – Pages like “I hate it when that spider disappears before I can kill it” or “I love skittles” are not neccessary to have on your Facebook. If it is a brand page that you do want to keep an eye on then keep it. But everything else, click unlike. These pages often post random things that do not pertain at all to the page topic. They are just clutter and are not needed at all.

2. Unfriend people – This is the way I went about it. I made a public status that said, “I am going to be cleaning out my friends list soon. Not deleting family, close friends or church friends. But people I don’t talk to at all or who I went to high school with but don’t really know. If you get deleted and want to be re-added then send me a message why. If you think you may be in one of the deletable categories above and don’t want to be then post below why I should keep you on my Facebook. Nothing against anyone. I just want to narrow down my supposed 227 friends to people I know.”
Most people you were unsure about deleting will not make the effort to refriend you or send you a message. That is ok. Delete all those old high school contacts that you never really talked to anyway. Delete anyone who is aggressive or overly negative to you. If someone is constantly making your day bad through Facebook, then delete them.
3. Put anyone you do not know face to face on your ‘Restricted’ list – Facebook has a list for friends called ‘Restricted.’ When you put someone on this list you are still friends but they can only see things you have made public. This is ideal for people that you have only met online or people you barely know. Use this feature. Facebook is a dangerous place so put people that you don’t know in person on this list. That way you can still keep in touch but don’t risk your safety or your families.

4. Organize pages you have liked – I found my newsfeed overwhelmed with pages about being a mother and/or parent. Make an interests list and add all these pages to it. To do this, hover over the page name, hover over liked click on “add to interests list” and make a new list. Then add whatever pages go under that category. Also make sure you unselect “show in my newsfeed” so that the page will no longer be showing up on the main page. When you do want to see the posts from these pages go to the sidebar next to your newsfeed and you will see all your interest lists. Click on the one you want and it will show a feed of all those pages posts. After removing all the secular mothering pages my newsfeed was so much more manageable.

5. Remove all negative influences – A lot of the secular mothering pages are great, but they also post a lot of things that are not so great. I also I was spending a lot of time browsing my newsfeed and those pages and posting on them. It was wasting a lot of time. So I moved those pages to an interest list. The only things in my newsfeed now are christian pages and friends posts.
Remove any pages that have an negative influence on you. Does a page post a lot of content that pulls you into needless arguments with others? Is there a page that posts images that affect your self esteem? Anything that is a negative influence on you, remove it. You don’t need those pages. There are a lot of pages on Facebook and I am sure you can find one that still has the good points of the one you unliked.

6. Go through your timeline – Better to do this when you have the time, or little by little. We all have moments where we post things that we think we just need to share. Most of what we post is not necessary. Go through your timeline and remove posts. You’ll be surprised how many funny photos, recipes and random statuses (e.g. I am making lasagna for dinner. YUM!) you posted that you can just delete off the timeline. Make an effort not to post something unless you feel that it is particularly important or funny.

Any other tips on how to clean up your Facebook? Post them in the comments!

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