Organizing Facebook | Giftie Etcetera: Organizing Facebook

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Organizing Facebook

Facebook was created for me.

Okay, okay. Mark Z. probably wasn't thinking of me, specifically, when he thought of Facebook, but the platform is a perfect match for me. I read quickly and write just as fast. I am a very social person. And I am computer-savvy.

Some of my favorite recent statuses:

"Today is going super duper well. 'Mommy, what about breakfast?' Yes, I forgot to feed my children."

"'Ander, you can have cereal, but there is very little milk left.' 'That's okay, Mommy. I'll have waffles. Nobody wants to be around you if you skip your coffee.'"

"My husband just took away electronic privileges from Loki for an hour for misbehavior. So Loki mooned my husband. I had to leave the room to hide the laughter."

See? Good stuff.

But I don't have time to constantly play on Facebook, so I had to set things up so that I could get to the good stuff, quickly. Here are some of the things that make Facebook easier for me to use.


A. Make lists and assign friends to those lists.

If you hover over your friend's name, you can then make him or her a Restricted, Acquaintance, Close Friend, or leave him or her as just a Friend. When I first did this for all 817 friends, it took a while, but I use these settings all the time so it was worth it. Don't forget to hover over their name, hover over the friend status, find settings, and set them so you can (or cannot, depending on their annoying level) see their statuses, since only close friend statuses always show up in your news feed. This is particularly important to me as where people get put isn't so much based on their actually closeness to me, but more on their role in my life and their tolerance for sometimes inappropriate language.



So coworkers go into Restricted status. They can only see what I make public, but still get a postive response to their friend request.

Acquaintance is saved for people that I don't know well or am just getting to know. For example, if I like a person in a group and they friend request me, they might get this status. Honestly, most of my posts go to this group, but usually not political or religious statuses or anything with bad words.

People without a setting go in the category of friends. This encompasses the majority of the people that I know.

A very select group goes into the close friends category. These people see EVERYTHING that I post. Having a medical procedure? These are my people and I tell them about it. Aren't they lucky?

B. Use groups.

I have several groups that I belong to. Many of them are my creations. I have my family groups, for discussing weddings, reunions, and who is having a baby. I have my planner groups, where we discuss day planners. Order in the Court is a group that I created for my friends who are into organizing.

In order to see all of the posts in your groups without getting overwhelmed with constant notifications, go to the group and, first, turn off Notifications in the upper right hand corner (by clicking to uncheck it).


Then click on the * in the upper right and corner and add the group to your favorites.


That way, even though you won't get notifications, you can always see whether there are new posts by glancing at the blue number next to the group. (I hid a friend's post to protect privacy as much as possible.)


Now, put your groups in a logical order by hovering over one of those little blue numbers that show how many posts there are in that group until it shows a pencil, then click to edit. Select rearrange.


The little numbers will change to three lines and can now be dragged into a logical order. (On the last picture, I finally figured out how to actually protect my friends' privacy and not just try to find a screen without too much personal stuff. Go me. Next time, I'll be smarter!)


My preferred order is listed below. It also might give you some ideas of the kinds of Facebook groups you can belong to.

1. Family (my mom's family, my immediate family, and one for just me and my sisters)

2. Kids' School (I created a group where the parents could ask each other questions, like when is football practice)

3. Friends (my best girlfriends from high school, a parenting support group that I have been close to for almost a decade, a couple other groups of close friends)

4. Cooking

5. Weight Loss

6. Budgeting

7. Parenting

8. Football (this group saves my friends who don't care about LSU football from the excessive posts during the games)

9. Book Club

10. Health

11. High School

12. Planners (I have several of those groups, as you might guess)

13. Nanowrimo/Writing

14. Organizing

Posting in the groups mean that my friends don't have to see what I cooked for supper, but those who are really interested can by joining the group.

A caveat about groups - I do not join public groups. If you do, everyone on your friends list is subjected to every post. Instead, I do closed (people can see you are a member of the group by not what you post) or secret (no one but group members can see that it exists).

I truly hope this makes your Facebook experience more orderly and less time-consuming. This is a fairly technical post for me, so if you try it and experience any problems, let me know and I will revise this post as needed.

Oh, and remember to share on Facebook! D'uh.

Etcetera.

8 comments:

Ashley said...

Great Post! I have to do the same things!

Christine Cortese said...

Wow, I have avoided Facebook for years because I just didn't grasp how the heck I could work it. But this post has really helped me immeasurably - thank you so much! I might get going now!

maccie2 said...

I love your blog already, but this post is beyond compare. I want to print the whole thing out and finally (1) understand and (2) control my Facebook. Thank you SO much for sharing.

Unknown said...

Wow!!! This is very nice post. It is very interesting and informative.

Regards,
Kopi Luwak

Songbird said...

This is amazing, thank you!

However, I don't see "Restricted" as a friend category option. I do see the other ones though. (?)

Songbird said...

Oh, never mind, I see it now. To see "restricted" you first have to click "Add to another list..." and then a bunch of other options pop up. Pretty cool.

Giftie Etcetera said...

Ha ha! Thanks for doing the research for me on that Restricted list, Songbird68. It's been awhile since I restricted someone.

Jennie Shutt said...

Thanks! This was very helpful.