Posts Tagged ‘Work-Life Balance’

Reflections On My Month Without Facebook and Twitter

Posted: March 18, 2020 in Social Media
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Last month I wrote a blog post about my decision to walk away from Facebook and Twitter for a month. Now that the month of self-imposed exile is behind me, it’s time to reflect on the experience.

Not surprisingly, there is both good and bad that comes with ignoring channels of communication where one is accustomed to being very active. I still had 24 hours in my days, but now about two or more of those hours would not be spent in social media outside of work as had been my habit previously. So what changed?

There were definitely some things I missed – things I found myself instinctively reaching for my phone to pursue before remembering they were off limits. (It helped that I deleted the icons for the apps from my phone for the month.) Some of those moments were deer-in-the-headlights times when I thought, “Now what do I do? This is a time where I know I’d normally be on my phone.”

Specifically, the things I missed while away include:

  • Seeing photos of family and friends on Facebook;
  • Keeping current with important events in the lives of friends, extended family, and acquaintances I’m only connected with on Facebook or Twitter;
  • The doses of humor I get regularly from my funnier friends;
  • Dog photos;
  • Assisting with the Facebook and Twitter efforts of my church on Sunday mornings during our worship.

However, the things I enjoyed more while away is longer:

  • I read more. The 1.5 books I read during the time isn’t a lot, but it’s about 1 more than I usually read in a month.
  • I slept more. My body keeps telling me to do more of this. Not wasting an hour sitting in bed watching Facebook videos before going to sleep helped.
  • I felt freer to take more and longer walks with my dog, Callie. Add to that the now mandatory working from home due to the coronavirus and Callie worships me now more than ever if that’s possible.
  • I had to get over the temptation to narrate my life online and just live it instead. Living it is better.
  • I enjoyed wonderful meals without feeling the need to take a photo and post it somewhere. I just savored the food and the moment.
  • I had more time to do needed volunteer work in my role as Sunday School Director for my church where we are in the midst of some significant changes.
  • I enjoyed seeing far fewer political rants that just get my blood boiling and change nobody’s opinion.
  • I spent a little more time initially on LinkedIn browsing content related to my profession, but I eventually set a 10-minute daily limit on that through my phone’s app timer. I didn’t just want the month to be substituting one form of social media for another.
  • I more frequently browsed NextDoor.com as well to see what was going on in my neighborhood, but also set that to a limit of 10 minutes per day.
  • I took the time to more thoroughly explore Reddit for the first time. I can’t believe that hasn’t been in my regular repertoire of social media sites, but it hasn’t. I found it just as addictive as the others and deleted the app from my phone within 24 hours of first checking it out. I haven’t been back.
  • I fed my election year political hunger through regular visits to RealClearPolitics.com, but gave it the same 10 minute limit daily.

It would be nice to say that I did far more meaningful, transformational, important things with those 2-3 hours of time daily previously given to Facebook and Twitter, but this was an experiment to see what I would do – not a planned effort to do any predetermined list of replacements.

So what are the main takeaways for me from this experience?

  1. I’d rate my life as generally better for the month without Facebook and Twitter than how things were previously.
  2. If it was better without them, it would be silly to return to the earlier practice after the experiment.
  3. If I return to some degree to social media, it would be foolish to contribute to that which I was glad to get away from (such as politics), and wise to do more of what I missed (humor).
  4. Since there is some good in social media, I’ll return to it but in a time-limited capacity. For now, I’m going to use my phone’s app timer to limit each social media platform to 10 minutes a day outside of work or church-related service. That’s still more time in total than I should give to it if I max out all channels any given day. However, I usually didn’t hit the timer limit on many, if any, apps during the past month, so I don’t expect to do so going forward, either. You don’t have to choose either total addiction or total abstinence when it comes to social media. You can find a healthy balance and be disciplined in how you approach it.
  5. I encourage everyone who is on a computer or phone outside of work for an hour or more a day to seriously consider such a time away as I had this past month. So many people are addicted to their phones or other devices. You keep your head in it at home, at work, on the go, and in gatherings where life can be better and more meaningful if you are present in the real world and not in social media land. Try it! It will reveal some things to you about yourself and what you’re missing. If you’re like me, the detox will be time well spent, and social media has been my profession and personal passion for the past decade! I promise you’ll survive without it.

Life is a journey. We come to crossroads and we choose a path. At this point in my journey, it seems right to dial back to a reasonable daily limit how much non-work time I give to social media. There is too much else that is more important to do – including relaxing and doing nothing at times.

Peace.

Dear Facebook and Twitter, I need a break from you.

Posted: February 17, 2020 in Social Media
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Social media has been my profession since 2010. I manage a large, 70,000-person internal community for a company that’s #56 on the Fortune 500 list. I served many years on its social media team and now perform those same functions from its Corporate Communications team. Through the years, I’ve had responsibilities that include the company’s Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn accounts as well as some external customer-facing communities and our employee advocacy program. I love my work and the company that allows me to have this much fun while working with amazing people and getting paid for it.

Personally, social media has been a huge part of my life as well for even longer. I’ve had an active role in my church’s social media for a number of years. Like many of you, I check my personal Facebook and Twitter accounts multiple times daily in addition to other online communities that are important to me. I’ve been in a pattern for many months where my main way of winding down at night before going to bed is to enjoy a number of Facebook videos that make me laugh or smile. It isn’t uncommon for me to spend at least a couple hours a day outside of my work duties browsing personal social media – mostly Facebook with a little Twitter and LinkedIn thrown in.

It is no small decision for me, then, to take a break from Facebook (and Twitter) for the next month beginning today – February 17, 2020 – and going until at least March 17. Why am I doing this?

Not in reaction to any particular stimulus.

Not as a protest against anyone or anything.

Not because I’m angry (I’m not).

Not to try to convince anyone else to do the same.

So why? Because I want to see what my life can be like if I reclaim that 2+ hours a day spent voluntarily online and invest that time elsewhere. I need to read more. I need to sleep more. I need to volunteer more. I need to do more around the house. I need more real-life, face-to-face time than Internet-based interactions with people.

I’ve thought about taking a short break from social media for years, but have never made the decision to do so because I enjoy it so much. It’s fun. It’s my profession. I connect with so many other wonderful people (and a few jerks) online. But I don’t like what I sense is a huge negative impact on time and meaningful relationships because of so much time with my head staring at a screen when it doesn’t have to be. So I’m putting that part of me on pause for a month.

I make no promises of what will happen after the month is up. Maybe I’ll go back to exactly the way things were. Perhaps I’ll learn some things in the next 30 days that cause me to make some permanent changes. We’ll find out together.

After this blog post is published and shared on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, I’ll be signing off Facebook and Twitter until March 17. I’ll still check LinkedIn with my usual once-every-few-days frequency for a few minutes since that’s mostly professional. I’ll visit the professional community of my peers around the globe hosted by The Community Roundtable. But I will try to get my head out of the Internet personal cloud and back on earth where I suspect it is better off.

If you need me in the coming weeks, call or text me if you know my number. If you don’t have that, my personal email is jeffkross@yahoo.com.

Peace. Enjoy the next month.

My Big Lesson from 2014

Posted: January 7, 2015 in Goals
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Dont-Suck-the-Life-Out-of-LifeFor the last couple of years I’ve been very public with my annual personal goals, including progress reports along the way as to how successful (or not) I am in achieving them. I’m not going to run down item by item the goal list from last year. Suffice it to say that I met or exceeded some and didn’t achieve others. If you’re curious about what they were, you’ll find posts about them here, here, here, and here. Instead, I want to write today about the overall lesson learned from 2014 that relates significantly to the goal effort. Here it is:

Don’t be so goal oriented that you suck the life out of life.

My first time for setting a long list of personal goals related to body, mind and spirit was in 2013. It went really well, so it’s no surprise I did it again in 2014. But we weren’t many months into the year before I felt overwhelmed. All of the goals were in addition to my work and volunteer efforts, and it was simply exhausting to try to stay up with all of them. I needed more rest, more sleep, more down time not focused on a never-ending to-do list.

While I made a mid-year correction and lowered the bar on some goals, that still wasn’t enough to put me at ease. I still wasn’t getting enough sleep. I ended the last few months of the year choosing a couple of the goals most meaningful and worked on them while letting the others go. My body, mind and spirit needed the break. It was the right thing to do. I had put so much emphasis on a long, ambitious list of what I wanted to get done that I had succeeded in sucking the life out of life. Surely that wasn’t good for me or anyone else around me.

So I’m determined in 2015 to take a different approach to goals for the year. There will be no long list of goals for body, mind and spirit. I’ll still continue the personal behaviors that have by now become important regular habits (getting in 10,000 steps per day 3 days per week, reading through the Bible in a version or study edition different than one I’ve read before, and spending time weekly on 100 Bible memory verses). But the only other goals will be very simple – getting more sleep daily than I averaged in 2014 (trying for 7.5 instead of 6.5 hours nightly), finishing the books I intended to read last year but didn’t complete, and being more intentional about serving my church and others rather than setting self-focused goals.

I recall a sermon by my former Associate Pastor Kris Billiter from January 2014 when he suggested we set other-oriented goals rather than self-focused ones. That message stuck with me throughout 2014, so I’m taking it to heart. I want to be a better person – not just someone who does a lot of stuff. Drastically reducing self-focused goals and saying “yes” to opportunities to serve others while still reserving enough time for adequate rest will be my basic plan.

I’ve always been a task-oriented person. Plans and goals and checklists fit me well. That isn’t the case with all people. But there is a point where too many to-do items just suck the life out of life. I reached that point in 2014 and have no intention of doing so this year. In fact, I’ve already scheduled one day per week for vacation every week from January through March, plus a full week off in February for the heck of it. I’m writing this post on the first of those restful, stay-at-home days where I slept late, read, played with the dog, spent a couple hours at church helping with our youth program, and now am finishing a blog post.

2015 is off to a good start. You’re welcome to hold me accountable if you like. I hope your year is both productive and meaningful at a deeper, personal, more satisfying level than mere checklists can guarantee.

Don’t suck the life out of life. It’s too precious.

A Year of Distinct Thirds

Posted: September 13, 2014 in Goals
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keep-calm-and-finish-strongI’ve been very goal oriented the past two years in publishing on this blog very specific goals in the categories of body, mind and spirit. The goals for 2013 were many and I was glad to accomplish nearly all of them. I started down a similar path at the beginning of 2014, but soon felt burdened by so many time-consuming goals outside of work and volunteer endeavors. By my March update I had reduced the goals a little bit, and by May I had decided to take a few months off from a couple of them entirely. My brain and my spirit needed a rest from the physical activity goals more than my body did. I still continued work on most of the goals, but filed a couple under “not gonna happen” and went on with life.

Now that we’re in the final third of the year and the end is in sight, I’m back in gear and ready to finish out the year completing those goals that are most important and putting aside officially those that aren’t. I’m already looking forward to a very different approach in 2015 which will not  have me listing all kinds of goals for body, mind and spirit. I’ll talk more about what it will include when the time comes.

With that background, here is where I stand with the original goals for 2014 and what my plan is to close out the year with each:

BODY

  • Average at least 10,000 steps per day every week. After taking the second quarter off from this, I’m back on track. My company has a 100 Day Dash going on right now until late November where we’re on teams recording and tracking steps daily. My goal for these 100 days is to never get less than 11,000 steps per day and so far I’ve done that. I’ll end the year strong and will keep at this pace until I reach our company’s top rewards program level which should happen around the end of the year.
  • Do a stretching routine daily. I started the year doing this faithfully but took a break after hurting my back. I never got back into the routine and don’t intend to for now. I’ll stretch before and after running, but not otherwise.
  • Run 365 miles for the year. I haven’t run 10 miles this year. I walk 5-6 miles a day between work and walking the dog, but I just haven’t gotten back into running. This goal will not be met. Walking will have to be good enough.
  • Average 7.5 hours of sleep a night. My average is more like 6.5 hours per night year to date. That isn’t enough. My body is calling for more and I have to find a way to make it happen. Of course, the 6.5 is more than years past, but I need more than years past.
  • Average no more than 45 hours per week for work. For the first year in the 11+ I’ve had with my company where I’ve tracked hours, I’m actually staying within the 45 per week limit. I’ve learned to adjust some things and manage my days differently to get to this point.

MIND

  • Author or co-author a book related to enterprise social networks. Now that we just completed the first year of the weekly Twitter chat I lead on enterprise social networks – #ESNchat – I’m planning on putting together a free e-book PDF that contains the first year’s chat archives plus a little background info on the experience. It’s the one and only book I’ll be responsible for this year, but I’m pretty proud of what it should be.
  • Write 100 blog posts. Earlier in the year I changed this goal to average one post per week instead of 100 for the year. Making that goal should not be a problem.
  • Set up Pinterest boards and pins to coincide with my blog categories and posts. In the interest of time, I abandoned this goal earlier in the year.
  • Reserve at least one hour per day for unstructured, unplanned time not related to any tasks or goals. I don’t track this and I know I don’t always accomplish it either, but I’m certain I’ve been better about allowing myself guilt-free free time this year. There is still room for improvement here, though.

SPIRIT

  • Finish reading The Apologetics Study Bible. I should be able to do this just fine. I’m thoroughly enjoying it. I’ve read Genesis – Isaiah so far, taking this one in order cover to cover.
  • Read these three major theology books: (1) Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine by Wayne Grudem, (2) Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine by Gregg Allison, and (3) Theology of the Reformers by Timothy George. To date I’ve completed the third book and am about 2/3 through the first one. I should be able to complete this goal as planned. I have to say that Grudem’s book is one of the most amazing books I’ve ever read. I’ve love to take part in or lead a one-year study of the contents of this book with a group of people.
  • Have a daily Bible reading and devotional time. I’ve missed days from time to time which is disappointing. Nothing should crowd this from my schedule. There is really no excuse for that. I must do better.

So there you have my goal update for mid-September 2014 – on track with some things, abandoned a few and modified others. At least I’m in that mode now of seeing the finish line for the year ahead of me and I’m working hard at a number of the goals to finish strong those that are most important.

What about you? How are you coming on what you set out to accomplish this year?

 

Time for a Mid-Course Correction

Posted: May 2, 2014 in Goals
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detourAny regular reader of this blog will know how goal-focused I am. I’ve written a lot about them throughout 2013 and early in 2014. I honestly thought that I was lightening my load a little for 2014 with my goals, but it turns out I was waaaaaaaaay off in that estimate! By the time of my March 1 goals update, I was already backing off a little. Now that it’s May 1, I’ve made even more reductions in the original plan for the year.

Why? Because being so goal-oriented above and beyond what is happening at work was simply making life too hectic and unsatisfying. I have yet to get the number of hours of sleep I want to average this year. I’ve failed far too many days reserving a single hour to relax and do as I please. I’ve felt an unnecessary weight on my shoulders and self-induced guilt for not being as up-to-date on my personal to-do list as I wish.

Frankly, I’m tired of all that. As the months have progressed in 2014, a few priorities have risen to the top that take precedence, while others will be reduced or eliminated if need be in order to preserve such simple things as sleep and a little unstructured time.

So here is what has changed recently and what stands out to me related to my goals going forward:

  • I have put aside the daily step goal of 10,000 steps at least through June. I averaged 18,000 steps a day for several months last year and hadn’t had any day with less than 10,000 steps since sometime last September until I recently decided to not care about my steps daily for a few months. That has been liberating. When my employer’s annual incentive program for steps kicks in again in July, I’ll make sure I do what it takes to maintain my current top rewards level, but I won’t commit to more than that going forward.
  • Previously I announced that I would reduce my blogging from the original goal of 100 posts for the year to one per week on average. I’m behind that adjusted goal since I only posted once in April, but I have a series of them planned that will easily catch me up to the one per week average. That’s still doable, but it was nice to take a break for a month.
  • I’m proud of myself for keeping my work hours to an average of under 45 per week this year. That saves me 8-10 per week compared to the past many years, so I’ll keep doing that.
  • The dream of writing or co-authoring a book on enterprise social networking is coming to fruition. May will be an important month for finalizing some plans with other co-authors who have agreed to participate. I’m very excited about that, but it’s going to be time consuming until it’s done. I’d like to wrap it up by late summer or early fall.
  • I’m behind somewhat on my reading goal, but not so much that some planned vacation times in May – July won’t catch me up.
  • I’m spending a lot more time managing my church’s Facebook and Twitter accounts than I ever dreamed I would – things not really taken into account in the year’s goals on January 1. This is incredibly important to me, however, so it is a high priority. It’s actually going very, very well which is encouraging. This is something I’m doing for others and not myself which is another reason it’s near the top of my priorities.
  • I love the weekly Twitter chat #ESNchat that I founded in September, 2013, but it is more time-consuming than I thought it would be. I’ll keep doing it, but it consumes on average an hour per day to pull off that one-hour-per-week chat. I’ll re-evaluate around the one year anniversary mark this fall following publication of the book mentioned above and another e-book publishing the first year’s chat archives.

This is the first of two planned vacation weeks in May (although only about half will really be vacation due to preparing for and speaking at a work-related conference next week in Philadelphia.) Two more weeks of time off are scheduled for June – one of which will be my periodic getaway to a monastery for a quiet time of reading and relaxation. It is apparent that I need to schedule two-week blocks off in order to actually take enough time off for other things. I’ll keep doing so until I’ve used up a majority of my bank of days off available.

While having a number of goals in the areas of body, mind and spirit was a nice approach in 2013, the goals for this year should have been fewer and more balanced between those that benefit me versus goals that benefit others. That’s the biggest takeaway so far for me as I ponder what changes to make in this mid-course correction. Deciding on the top few priorities for me (down time, sleep) while making sure that major goals also benefit others (my church, my profession) is the focus of this correction. And if this correction doesn’t balance things out, then more course corrections will happen in the months ahead.

Life shouldn’t be all fun and games, but neither should it all be work. This year – unlike last year – I’m not hell-bent on pursuing the original goals no matter what. I have adjusted and will continue to adjust as needed to find the sweet spot of how I spend my time. That’s hard for a goal-oriented person to do, but it seems best and most sensible.

I’m tired of chasing so many goals that I end up feeling daily like I’m missing out on life.

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