A New Way To Plan Your Weekends

Why You Should Plan Your Weekends Using Instagrams Collections.

Do you ever find yourself trying to organise a day out for a hike or a catch up over coffee but you just can’t decide where to go to? 

If you’re typing in “cafe near me” into your favourite maps app and going into every. single. pin. and seeing what has the best reviews, nicest looking food and overall vibe you're trying to go for...

There is a better way! And it’s FREE!

I present to you, Instagrams Collections! 

Now, to get it straight out of the way, I am not affiliated with Meta/Instagram in any way and gain nothing from those companies by writing this, except the warm fuzzy feeling of hopefully helping you! 

What is Instagram Collections?

“Collections” is where all of your saved posts and reels from Instagram live. You can organise your saved posts into custom files and collaborate with friends of your choosing! Every time you or your friend save something into your shared folder, it will also be sent to your private chat the same way it would if you shared it with them directly. Of course you can still have collections just for yourself that no one else can see. 

How I Use It?

I think I use Instagrams Collections in a similar way to how some people use Pinterest. I spend a fair amount of time on Instagram, it’s really the only social media platform I use in my personal life so it just makes sense for it to be where I find and keep all the stuff that inspires me. 

I have folders for all kinds of topics like ”Nails💅” which is just full of nail art ideas and colour combinations I’d like to try, or “Dream Home” for decorating and renovation ideas for the home I’ll hopefully own one day (it’s nice to dream!). I have some collections I haven’t touched in a while and others I’m adding to daily!

My two most used collections, by far, are the ones I have shared with my partner. The first is “Backyard 🚙” where we add hikes, beaches, landmarks and things to do that we could make a day trip or weekend out of. The other one is called “Brissy” (the nickname for the city we live near) where we save cafes, restaurants and local events for us to check out when we feel like heading out for the day or catching up with friends and family. 

For these two folders I tend to only add posts made by creators instead of posts from businesses. Instead of ads for one place, I mostly save things like “5 cafes in (insert city you live in) you should try next”. More on why below.

So How Do Collections Help Me Decide?

Whenever I get the itch to go out and explore, I now have a bunch of posts and reels saved that are almost guaranteed to be a good time. This is for 2 main reasons - 

1. These posts are usually made by creators that rely on making good content and recommendations to grow and keep the trust of their audience. This means they are less likely to recommend a dodgy place just for the heck of it. 

2. You have already seen the recommended place and liked it enough to save it for later, meaning you’ll probably still be interested in it when you look back through your Collection to decide on where to go!

For example, if my partner and I have a whole weekend free and we’d like to go out and explore a bit, I’ll open up my “Backyard 🚙” collection and look through our saved ideas. Another huge upside is we are both familiar with everything in there because, as I mentioned above, the saved post gets sent to our dm’s when added to a shared collection. Now I can scroll through all the ideas I’ve found interesting and inspiring before, and look for a destination or activity to centre the weekend around. 

An Unexpected Bonus

Something I wasn’t expecting but has been a welcomed change is that creating and adding to my collections has made my Instagram algorithm far more enjoyable. My feed is now so much more likely to show my things I find exciting and inspiring because that’s the content I’m interacting with more. So now when I find myself doom scrolling, between the memes and random videos about the current state of the world, I find posts that might unlock an awesome new adventure and get me excited for the weekend!

Thank you so much for reading and I hope to catch you here again!