Digital & Social Media Clutter

My Leaving FB/Meta & Simplifying Story

Photo is my own, from an early morning walk

Like so many people here on Substack, I arrived here burnt out from social media, barely a spark of hope left that any space might actually be meant for the written word.

This post is based on how I left. How to declutter your social media, so it stops sucking you back in - especially for entrepreneurs, but hopefully helpful for anyone.

At first, I loved social media (mainly Facebook, I never really did much with any of the other platforms). I was ‘naturally’ a social butterfly. Engagement was a natural high for me, and I thrived there. I thrived there so much, I eventually created an online business, which I ran entirely through Facebook and a website, for years - including business coaching, where I helped other women build businesses on Facebook.

The only thing I struggled with, was shortening my words - every business coach, every mentor, told me I wrote too much, that people would never read it. People wanted short, snappy, easy to digest content. I got better at creating that kind, but I still snuck in longer posts, and people did read them - my people did.

Then, a few years ago, I left my husband. All of life got more overwhelming of course, and Facebook was no exception. Keeping up the level of connection I had before was harder - I had less time; I was a single mom. The first year was the worst, but I picked back up eventually, until last year, when things started to get harder with my kids (a teenager, and an autistic child who started struggling more with the school dynamics). For the second half of 2024, I was barely keeping my head above water at home and serving the clients I had already, and keeping up the level of activity I had previously on Facebook just couldn’t happen.

For the first half of this year - 2025 - I wasn’t keeping my head above water anymore, and to add to the confusion - something more struck me as wrong with Facebook, beyond the difficulties of ‘keeping up’. It started feeling icky in a way I had never noticed before, and I had learned to listen to my intuition; every time I opened the app, I quickly closed it again to keep from picking up any crappy energy.

At first I questioned myself; thought it was just me and my overwhelm. I found Substack, and it was like a deep breath of fresh air for a dying soul. When it became clear that it wasn’t just my overwhelm, I started ‘decluttering’ it - dismantling my business from its platform, piece by piece.

If you’re in the process of doing this, feel free to share your experience in the comments!

Whether you run/ran a business on Facebook or not, or whether another platform is your struggle, I hope the detailed steps I took help you to start extricating yourself from the doom scroll and social media addiction, and declutter your digital life in a big way.

I’ll leave it in the order I did it - I was stripping it away in layers to see where my limit was. Each decision and action combo showed me just how much less I wanted. I cleaned up every energy leak I could find, since I had none to spare in my life right then.

Here’s what I did:

I got ruthless with clearing out groups I was in.

(SIMPLIFYING my groups ‘game’, feed, and clearing out energetically stagnant parts of my life)

1. As an entrepreneur and online business owner, I was in hundreds, even after previous clear-outs. (Mindset that helps if you feel guilty leaving: If you don’t engage, you only hurt their stats and engagement anyway.)

2. If you’re not actively using it now and might ‘someday’ - then join it again on that distant someday. Just like physical clutter, the ‘someday’ stuff just piles up.

3. The groups I stayed in went from around 300 to closer to 30. The ones I kept were my own, my very favourite other ones, and ones I used regularly before my exodus - in case decluttering made it possible to come back.

4. The ones I left ranged from courses/programs I had paid for (I had to get real with my fantasy self again, just in digital this time - I left about 20 that I got 'lifetime access' to but that I will probably never look at again. NOT because they were bad, but because I've uplevelled to my own strategy, built self-trust up the wazoo, already integrated and don't need to review, and so on...), groups I had no idea what they were or when I’d joined, and ones I did know (I joined many to support other female entrepreneurs - but I didn’t use the spaces - refer to point 1. I left 193 special interest or entrepreneur groups)

Relentlessly pruned my “friend’s” list

(SIMPLIFYING my feed and what goes in my eyes, informationally (😂))

1. I had always done this in bits and pieces, but now I blocked excessively, unfriended easily, and unfollowed anything that didn’t rub me right (378 pages/people in a day). My intuition had had a WILD uplevel over the last few months and I trusted it entirely. If they weren’t a hell yes, they were a no. High numbers of friends/followers/group members have never been my thing… ALIGNMENT always has.

Moved my courses and programs out of Facebook groups

(SIMPLIFYING my business by removing recurring tasks I couldn’t automate, gradually turning my products more ‘evergreen’, and tweaking my delivery format to require less of my time)

1. I gathered information (of mine) that was being stored with Facebook groups as ‘containers’ - completed programs or courses I didn’t run live. How could I promise lifetime access to something stored in a space I didn’t own, anyway? I had to make lists of names of people who would need access when I rebuilt these courses/programs elsewhere. I had to communicate with past clients, one by one. It was/is painstaking. (I still haven’t rebuilt all of them - I’m a solo business owner and after basically shutting down my business for six months, I’m in no position to hire it out yet.)

2. I gleaned all the important stuff (downloaded video content) from 4 of my previous paid programs that were no longer in use, wrote down the lists of who had the access originally - just in case - and booted them out, then deleted those groups. I was already making so many decisions that I wasn’t ready to decide if I should let these programs go entirely or not. Whether I ever rebuild these ones and resell them as evergreen products as I once intended, is a decision I’ll make later. (Even as a veteran minimalist, I experience decision fatigue. Knowing your limits and stopping when you need a break are important parts of the decluttering process. I couldn’t stop yet, but I could choose to save these decisions for a less intense time.)

3. I moved 3 live programs that were simple and barely used their Facebook groups anyways - we already had Telegram chats set up, and I just informed everyone that would be the only access point from now on, and deleted the groups

4. I moved one group that was still active - for The Spiral of the Rose podcast, with

   Kelli Femrite
   - to Substack as its own publication

5. Then it was time to look at the last one I was still running live - “SIMPLIFY. Declutter. A 12-Month Journey to Simplifying Your Life”. I had to pause what was supposed to be a never-ending program, to rebuild it in a different way somewhere else. Maintaining this group while trying to change it, was like working an extra job just to pay to maintain a jalopy instead of walking everywhere for a while to save money for a new car. This program became The Simplified Year on Substack! I’ll share more about this move and how/why I chose this new format later in this post, for those of you who are entrepreneurs and may want to understand my process for your benefit.

I cleared out inactive members from my main Facebook group

1. This was a process I did regularly anyways, and it was time for another cull. It kept engagement sky high and the space clear of trolls and troublemakers. If you want details of processes like this, definitely follow or subscribe to my publication The Butterfly Network - my business coaching space. It’s a holding area for now as I still transfer things over, but it’ll be the place for you, soon.

I deleted my other accounts

1. I had created a second Facebook account to experiment with different things at one point. I deleted it.

2. I deleted my second business Instagram account

3. I deleted extra Pages I had created at different points in my business on Facebook

I deleted all the social media apps off all my devices, even if I still had an account

If I ever wanted to go back, they’d be there, but I don’t have to interact with them in the meantime, now they aren’t tempting me, and to be honest? I mostly forget they exist now.

What I kept (so far):

1. 1 group of my own for a paid program that is archived with a ton of gold inside that needs to be gleaned before I delete it & also turned evergreen. This one was too time consuming for immediate removal, and not live, so less of a priority than the others I was running live at the time.

2. 4 groups I have paid to be inside of, whether active currently or completed, but which I am still using.

3. 8 of my client's groups (I feedback on their group strategies and/or get value myself from them, so still actively involved)

4. 5 groups I actively sold in (and would continue to if I choose to keep that part of my sales strategy)

5. 1 for a book I helped edit, so I could stay informed

6. 1 run by a very high level entrepreneur my mom knows, whose info I need to find to contact her elsewhere before I delete it

7. 1 I moderate out of the love of the space before (it changed my life!), and the content, but which has grown so much and has so many moderators now that I may leave it too, (especially since I run my own minimizing and simplifying program)... for anyone who prefers Facebook, definitely check it out - Nourishing Minimalism

8. 4 special interest - Global Grandmothers’ Council Network (wise elder wisdom gold), The Shaman's Cave (global community of shamans), Shamanism, Mysticism, Healing, and Spirituality in Practice (my Shamanic teacher's group and one I really enjoy), and Goddessey (a spiritual/practitioners community I like)

9. And of course, my Facebook group - the community, the online village I had created, curated, loved, and nurtured for years - Heartbeat’s Harbor©️. This group has always been my favourite place. If Facebook goes entirely for me one day, this would be the ‘last woman standing’. It may be all that stays? OR… I might change how it runs to find that sweet alignment that feels so amazing again. IF (big if) this group ends up getting cut out at some point in the future, it will only be with a replacement space, so we can still connect.

The Most Important Thing

Throughout the entire process, I held onto my values.

• I was never in the business of making money just to make money - it was always the people that mattered. So, even though it made the process slower, I communicated my way through it all. I posted on my profile and in the groups I owed an explanation to for not showing up for a while. I sent updates now and then of my progress. I kept my clients informed, especially - both past and present.

• I didn’t allow guilt over how others might feel to hold me back; so long as I knew there was no intention to hurt anyone in any way on my part, I knew I was doing the right thing for me… and that’s the best any of us can ever do.

• I didn’t burn bridges, act cruelly, or call anyone out to blame for what was happening. I was considerate, polite, or quiet in my exodus, leaving as much positivity and even testimonials in my wake as possible.

• I kept track of the things I said I would do someday. I’m a person of my word, and I will slowly work my way through this list in a timeframe that is aligned with the life I’m now living.

If you’re not an entrepreneur and don’t care about free business advice/learning…

…feel free to skip out on the rest of this post! I’d love it if you shared, though.

For those who might glean the value:

Here is the in-detail process of moving a live group program (“SIMPLIFY. Declutter. A 12-Month Journey to Simplify Your Life”) on Facebook, to The Simplified Year, a subscription-based publication, right here.

Where I started from

I had been running the program live, posting multiple times per week. There was no end in sight - it was a forever program with the promise of never-ending reminders to stay on the task of decluttering and simplifying their lives.

One never-changing, yearly, repeating focus. Twelve never-changing, monthly, repeating focuses. Forty-eight never-changing, weekly, repeating focuses.

The same posts, minor tweaks - no creativity involved. Even with Facebook’s scheduling capabilities… it was a recipe for burnout and boredom (especially for a 1/3 Manifesting Generator with hyperactive-type ADHD).

This style of recurring info is also a very ineffective way to run a Facebook group of all things. Because they were recurring posts, even at yearly intervals, people didn’t feel the need to actively engage. This resulted in very little engagement, even with me actively reminding people, even if it was content that they needed/wanted and even enjoyed. And the less they engaged, the less they automatically saw new posts without being tagged in them. And so on, in a downward low-engagement spiral.

This group had been created as an experiment on how to deliver different types of content and programs, and I can tell you right now - don’t do it this way!

So let’s dig into the shift.

First, I pressed pause.

I had to take a break from the endless posting task I had created for myself so that I could even figure out a new plan, let alone rebuild such a complicated, detailed program somewhere else. I still made myself somewhat - but less - available to coach the clients in the program, in case of questions, but I was clear around the expectations. I would respond less frequently, and required patience from them during this process.

I was also abundantly clear that this contemplation and pivot in the delivery portion of the program, had no bearing on how much I enjoyed interacting and supporting them all through their decluttering journey. I promised to update regularly on the progress I was making. Most of my clients were entrepreneurs - overlaps from my business programs - so I also made it very clear that these changes would be a great example of SIMPLIFYING their offers, and their time.

I still loved the topic, and the people. But I hated the format. And it’s okay to make changes, even when you have clients, to get into better alignment for yourself.

Then, I sat with it for a while

This was honestly hard for me - I love productivity and tend to dive straight in. I love to deliver quickly, above-and-beyond what’s required of me. But I didn’t want to move these people twice!

I considered making this program a course on my website, but decided that didn't make it interactive enough to keep people coming back - and I knew that simplifying and minimizing was a layered thing - a way of life. A sort of rhythm to follow.

I considered a recurring email sequence for constant reminders - but I know how easy it is for emails to disappear into the abyss, and become clutter themselves (especially ones that repeat).

I wanted all the detail, suggestions, etc. that I had worked so hard to put together, to be put to good use. I wanted to be able to update it if needed, so I knew I’d need a system where I could check in on the content consistently. And I wanted to be able to get creative on this topic that I loved so much, instead of stagnating on the same information again and again. It wasn’t the main part of my business anymore, so I didn’t talk about it all the time in my content, and when I did, it sounded disjointed and unrelated.

I made a decision

It would be an archive of searchable, pre-built sections & posts on a Substack publication: The Simplified Year, accompanied by a brand new podcast by the same name. Full access to the entire year at any time, so people could pick a different area than we were working on if they needed to/so desired.

Each month (ongoing) I would drop in with a short voice note/episode related to the topic of the month (still the recurring topics, with a more current/fresh ‘take’ each time); a gentle nudge to never give up, and a reminder to check back in if you drifted away temporarily. I’d also share the posts and select pieces of them as notes to keep them top of mind, at the appropriate times throughout the year, keeping the core of the program alive.

Every quarter, I would do an extra episode for reflection and seasonal anchoring, to help you flow with nature in your simplifying and decluttering journey, meshing my Shamanic and spiritual knowledge with the importance of simplifying our lives in order to thrive. As I wove my spiritual beliefs even lightly into this program, I fell in love with it all over again - it levelled up.

There would be paid-subscriber-only chats where you could check in, share a win, name a resistance, or ask a question. I’d be in there too occasionally, encouraging, sharing & supporting, just because I enjoy it and I maintain my minimalism journey still to this day. However, these would be the community aspect of this program, and were not intended as a coaching space - thus removing any time-based demands for set check-ins from me.

There would also be sporadic/occasional public/free posts, where I could share my minimalism journey, why simplifying is so important in our hustle and consume culture, and more, which were beyond the scope of this program, yet so related and important. These would be emailed to subscribers automatically as further reminders to check in, while hopefully also bringing new people into the space consistently without me needing to advertise it all the time.

This fulfilled the creativity I desired so much from this topic, supplemented a powerful program in a way that made it more interesting to engage with, and removed the constant creation of ‘sales content’ from my to do list for this program - I could just share value, add buttons with the option to subscribe, and then share the posts as valuable little notes.

Everyone who had paid in full for lifetime access to this program was granted and comp-ed a free, lifetime paid subscription to this publication, in order to access this forever.

Anyone who didn’t want emails on other topics from me could unsubscribe from my regular list, and retain access to the subscription for this program. Anyone who didn’t want any emails but wanted the program, could adjust their notification settings in Substack to in-app only. Then they could access their paid content at will, without receiving emails about it. (I know this is a lot of info, but a simplified inbox has always mattered to me so I assume it matters to you also, haha!)

I loved every bit of my plan. I still love it.

I communicated the plan, and then took action

It would take time to get the entire year's worth of content plugged in over here, and I’d need to reformat the monthly and weekly posts from a bunch of short ones into consolidated, longer, blog-style posts to populate the section of the publication for The Simplified Year Rhythm.

I decided on a way to connect or include the secondary course I’d granted access to for certain members as a bonus, which was tied into the October portion of The Simplified Year Rhythm - Simplify Your Schedule. (I went with granting them lifetime founding member access, with only founding members being able to access this section - done by selecting Founding Members only for who the posts get sent to/are available to.)

I separated out two decluttering challenges I’d done previously - one from 2022, one from 2024 - to motivate members, to repurpose on Substack for driving new subscriptions at a later date.

I nabbed all the ‘extra’ posts I’d created over the years, like decluttering basics and how-to’s and set them as draft posts so I could reuse them as free, valuable content when I wasn’t feeling especially creative at some point in the future, too.

I did an “art party” session with Rebecca from Magicalstock.art to create some unique-to-me artwork I’d have the rights to, specifically for this publication. I also maintain a membership there for most of my graphics on my other publications, and I highly recommend it - she does beautiful work.

I changed my pricing structure, to reflect the less-involved and less time-consuming approach I would now be taking, as well as to reflect the ability to come-and-go as you please with a subscription instead of “lifetime access” (applicable to new members only). Instead of $88/month x12 months or $880 one time payment, I changed it to $8/month or $88/year, with a founding member option at $188/year.

I created a new graphic, with one of the images from my art party:

And then, I decided to focus entirely on building The Simplified Year until at least the end of 2025, while I re-simplify my own life.

This singularity of focus is unusual for me - I usually have twenty things on the go (I love simplified spaces, schedules, and so on, but not so much on the simplified creative business endeavors!).

I will be lightly maintaining a few other things which are already built and sustainable (Suspending Disbelief, and The ADHD Meditator publications - each with a single monthly post - as well as my Wild Leaders Mastermind which is still in session), but not building/creating anything else new in the meantime.

As soon as I made this decision, things started building momentum and growing more quickly - which is why I’m sharing it with you. “Pick one” is advice that’s hard to follow as a creative entrepreneur, but I can now confirm that - as with all other aspects of SIMPLIFYING your life - it’s worth it.

X

Bri