This past week I transitioned back to my home office in Fort Worth and tried to stay focused on a few digital wellness tactics that I started while I was gone. I have been experimenting with these ideas for about two weeks now … with varying levels of success:

1) Keeping my phone charging in another room overnight (in my case, in the kitchen instead of the bedroom)
2) Not checking my email until 8 AM (or later!)
3) Moderating my social media use by deleting the Facebook and Messenger apps from my phone
4) Waking up to a cold nose instead of an alarm clock (highly recommended … and Oscar does this at 6 AM every weekday)
5) Not checking anything on my phone before I get out of bed (# 1 has crushed this habit)
6) Setting goals for the day before I open my email
7) Turned off all obnoxious notifications on my phone

I was not surprised by how much keeping my phone away from my bedside table helped with things – especially getting out of bed in the morning, NOT checking my email immediately, and staying off of social media and news feeds first thing. In fact, my new rule is no technology before my feet hit the floor in the morning. The more challenging tactics have been to not check my email before 8 AM and to set my goals for the day before checking my inbox. I suppose the old habit of letting my inbox dictate my priorities will be a hard one to wrestle but worth it in the end. As for my social media use, it has been nice to moderate my usage and not have the FB apps on my phone – my outlook on life always improves when I step away from social media for a bit. In that regard, I am replacing the fear of missing out (FOMO) with the JOY of missing out (JOMO). Maybe in the future when we speak in text language “sabbaticals” will just be called “JOMOs”?

Speaking of the future, it arrived in Fort Worth while I was gone … Curbside groceries at Central Market and parking availability signs at the new shopping center:

And, finally, a few fun things that I picked up along the way:

The Olympics start this week – Lindsey Vonn reminds us to be fierce

Fun slogan from an Olympics ad – ABFTTB – Always be faster than the boys!

An insightful article about the new album from The War on Drugs – if you haven’t indulged in this one, you really should!

A few good ideas here for an upcoming presentation on website engagement

See you next week – LB

This week was all about getting work done on my user-generated content book chapter while making time for learning new skills. I have been working from my mother’s house in Florida so it has been nice to take breaks that include walks on the beach, trips to my favorite childhood restaurants, reading new books, and lots of crafting activities. It has also proven to be an excellent time for rethinking my routines and approaches to work, writing, and getting things done.

Here are a few fun items I have stumbled upon along the way:

Pointers for morning routines that help with productivity

Many ways to motivate yourself to write

How to optimize your office for healthy working conditions
(I am a big fan of Blue Zones and Fort Worth is a Blue Zone city!)

Interesting piece about George Soros and his anti-social media speech at Davos

Insights into social media bots and the “Follower Factory”

Tips on how to open up your heart chakra
(Bonus: you get to say an awesome Hawaiian word as part of it)

Learning about how to “Brave the Wilderness” from Brene Brown

Key questions to ask yourself:

• Did I respect my own boundaries? Was I clear about what’s okay and what’s not okay?
• Was I reliable? Did I do what I said I was going to do?
• Did I hold myself accountable?
• Did I respect the vault and share appropriately?
• Did I act from my integrity?
• Did I ask for what I needed? Was I nonjudgmental about needing help?
• Was I generous toward myself?

These have been particularly helpful for me as I try to moderate my social media use as well as my phone use as I learn more about digital wellness.

And, for those of you that are curious about the crafting part of my week, I learned how to make a pattern, cut fabric, and sew a Japanese knot bag from scratch courtesy of Fran Bright (PS – I might have a new YouTube sewing star on my hands!).

Classes began at TCU this past week and I officially started my research sabbatical – what a thrill :). These last few days have been all about organizing my projects for the coming semester, deciding what to tackle first, and finishing up two projects related to social media fatigue.

As part of this process, I did my annual email clean out and unsubscribed from newsletters that I don’t get much out of anymore and found some new things to check out. I also took some time to catch up on my favorite podcasts and have the best tidbits from those shows listed below.

Interesting finds this week:

Time Well Spent Movement
*This is a new movement focused on raising self awareness of smart phone usage.

Taking control of your phone!
*This page offers specific tips for controlling your usage.

The “Note to Self” Podcast – Advice Episode
*Lots of great tips on managing information overload, securing your data online, and beating the FOMO blues.

The “Note to Self” Podcast: Black Mirror Episode
*Fascinating themes about AI, death, social media, and politics in this episode featuring the creators of the show Black Mirror.

Some cool newsletters to subscribe to:

Axios Media Trends
The Ann Friedman Weekly
Barking up the Wrong Tree
We Are Next
Dave Pell

This week I will be continuing my work on an Oxford Press Bibliography on “User-Generated Content in Communication” that will come out later this year. If you have any fun suggestions for that, send them my way :).

See you next week!

This semester I will have my first academic sabbatical to work on research projects related to big data, social media fatigue, and citizen engagement in digital spaces. Excited to see what this time brings … for now, I am working on the weirdness of not creating syllabi and prepping for classes for the first time in a decade :).

Luckily, I have this joker to keep me in line and motivated!

Excited to be in London for the month of June with 18 students from the TCU Strategic Communication program. We will be exploring the city and surrounding area and doing a variety of cultural activities including visits to the Globe Theatre, British Museum, Windsor War Rooms, Oxford, Windsor Castle, the Brand Museum, and the London offices of Ogilvy & Mather ad agency. It is going to be an active, fun-filled trip!