The one small thing I did that changed my life

By Sandra Oliver, Impact Founder

About a month ago, I did something small that turned out to be surprisingly significant: I deleted Instagram.

It wasn’t a grand decision. I wasn’t making a statement or trying to reclaim my life. I was just … frustrated.

My feed had slowly turned into a stream of ads, promotions, and influencers asking me to subscribe to something else – Substack, newsletters, paid communities. The original value – keeping up with friends, discovering interesting ideas – felt gone. My son had already deleted the app a couple of months earlier and didn’t miss it. That stuck with me. So I deleted it too.

And here’s the surprising part: I haven’t missed it at all.

There’s an empty spot on my home screen where the app used to be. I notice it occasionally, but there’s no pull, no urge to reinstall. Just … space.

But the real story isn’t about what I removed. It’s about what replaced it.

A calmer baseline

The first thing I noticed was a shift in how I felt: calmer.

It’s hard to describe exactly, but that constant, low-level frenetic energy that comes with scrolling – the subtle anxiety, the sense that something is always happening somewhere else – just disappeared. I hadn’t realized how much it lingered throughout the day until it was gone.

What’s interesting is that my schedule hasn’t dramatically changed. I’m not suddenly working less or spending radically more time with people. But the quality of everything has improved.

Watching hockey with my family – something we love – now has my full attention. I’m actually there, not half-scrolling, half-watching.

Yoga has changed completely. I’m more focused on my breathing, more aware of my body, and progressing faster because my mind isn’t racing somewhere else.

And with our kids, who are in their 20s, building careers, and navigating big life changes, I’m simply more present. The conversations feel richer. The connections feel deeper. Same amount of time, entirely different experience.

Without trying to, I started replacing quick hits of content with deeper ones. I’m reading full articles again. Listening to entire podcasts. Learning more – actually absorbing ideas instead of skimming past them. It’s less volume, more substance.

A shift at work

I run a coaching firm, and like most leadership roles, it can easily consume every available hour. Over the past month, we’ve had a lot going on including team changes, both exciting and challenging. Normally, that kind of intensity would pull me into reactive mode.  Instead, I’ve felt more present and more intentional.

I’ve found myself freeing up space in my calendar – something we often advise as coaches, but rarely see in practice. One of our senior coaches often says that C-suite leaders should have 60% of their calendar free. There’s good data that this change makes them much better leaders. It sounds unrealistic … until you experience even a fraction of it.

That space has allowed me to focus on higher-value work:

• Strategic partnerships
• Innovation
• Reconnecting with thoughtful, interesting people
• Helping the team in a more present and thoughtful way

I feel more strategic, more useful, and frankly, more energized by my work.

The unexpected lesson

What stands out most for me is that I didn’t replace Instagram with a structured plan. I didn’t set goals for how I’d use the extra time. I just removed something – and let the space fill itself.

And what filled it was better: more presence, more depth, calmer, more intention.

Deleting Instagram wasn’t a dramatic life overhaul. It was one small decision. But it created space, and that space changed everything else without effort.

I’m calmer. Happier. More connected. More effective. And that’s been the real surprise.

I highly recommend it.