For all of January 2026 I banned myself from LinkedIn. Hiatus. Break. Fast. Experiment.

Why

It seemed drastic, but upon reviewing how I spent my time, energy, and attention in 2025, it was clear that LinkedIn wasn’t working for me. Doom-scrolling. Unsubstantiated claims. Engagement farming. Dunning-kruger. Echo chambers. Outrage chambers. Attention attrition. Distractions in general.

I had already reduced my access to only via my desktop web browser. No app, no mobile web. I used my OS “HOSTS” file to completely block it on weekends. Even so, I developed a muscle-memory of opening it quickly and often during work days. I experimented with only checking twice a day, but it was difficult to stick to that habit. Even when going in with a particular intention, I would find myself several minutes in completely forgetting what my original goal was.

So I signed out on desktop and left the HOSTS file alone for all of January.

This felt risky, because I am active on very few social networks, and this one was related to business. As a solo business, I am my marketing department, and this would limit my business development efforts.

What happened

It went well! I spent more time keeping in touch over email, which I think is a better strategy in general. Others likely feel the same issues with LinkedIn. I also gave more energy to the various Slack communities I am a part of.

My muscle memory habit was broken. Overall, I felt more focused.

I attended a few in-person meetups that month, and the usual LinkedIn connection request came up. I simply explained I was off network that month and would accept their connection request on February 1st. This experiment is actually good for conversation.

I’ve realized that I do use LinkedIn quite a bit for keeping up-to-date with peers and prospects. I also use it when looking for folks to recruit (I help companies with hiring) as well as researching folks I am about to have conversations with. I will find ways to reduce this dependency.

The future

Since completing the month off I decided to explore the following:

• Move more communications out of the network.
• Design standard operating procedures for my interactions on the network (posting, research, engagement, etc).
• Experiment with a browser extension to force me to declare my intention before entry, and check on me every few minutes.

These are still in progress, and I’ll share more about them in the future.

August starts tomorrow, and I will be taking the entire month off social media. This might be easier since many folks are on vacation. Olya and I will be celebrating our wedding anniversary ❤️.

I will still be writing and publishing here, so you’ll have to subscribe or check back to read my new articles until September.