Let’s Talk Tech Wellness

As a Tech Evangelist since the early 1990s, I’m very interested in the topic of Tech and Digital Wellness.

I’ve denied the idea of Tech Addiction – especially for myself because Tech is part of my JOB – but have more recently become keenly aware of how my relationship with Tech has actually hurt me. After being such a cheerleader for Tech and Internet adoption over the years, talking about this sometimes feels almost blasphemous. But like anything we absolutely love, moderation – and mindfulness – is the key to getting more benefits than harm out of anything.

10 Practices for More Impact with Less Burnout

modified from a post published on AlizaSherman.com

Beth Kanter and I gave our first joint presentation on some of the content we’ve been compiling and writing for our new book together, The Happy Healthy Nonprofit: 10 Strategics for Impact Without Burnout. Our assignment was to come up with 10 concrete things anyone could start doing today to bring more awareness to one’s health and wellbeing and apply self-care techniques to different aspects of one’s life.

Untether Your Life: 4 Easy Steps to Digital Zen

This post originally appeared on WomenBusinessExperts.com.

We interrupt this program to glance down at our smartphone to see if we have an email message or notification.

You think I’m kidding. I am now eating my words from the 1990s when I mocked the media for saying that people were going to get “addicted” to the Internet.

Women and Our Relationship to Technology

Huffington Post and Real Simple polled over 3000 women i 2013 and found that technology played an essential part in women’s lives but also revealed a complex relationship that we as women have with our tech devices, namely our smartphones.

We are overwhelmed. A short manifesto

Our cup is too full. We need to disconnect to reconnect.

As Cybergrrl, I spent the early 90s telling people they should “Get Online!” More recently, while promoting my 10th book, Social Media Engagement for Dummies, I wanted to talk about the tech elephant in the room: that a big challenge we all face engaging people through social media is that everyone is overloaded, bombarded by information and ads and pummeled by constant, ubiquitous social media news feeds.

12 Ways to Infuse Your Work with Purpose

At some point in your career or business, you’re probably wondered where you’re going or why you’re going there. As human beings, each of us seeks meaning in what we do in life. At certain points of our lives, we may also look for a higher purpose to what we do for work.

10 Easy Steps To Unplugging

The hardest part of taking a break from our personal technology – our gadgets and screens and the social networks that beckon us – is just doing it without all the fears and anxiety that comes with shutting off our smartphones or (gasp!) leaving them behind when we go out. We rationalize that we need this connectivity, that without it, we might miss out on something important or (shock! horror!) be lost or lonely.

The Disconnecting Dilemma

January 1, 2014. Stream of conscious musings. First journal entry after years of not journaling…

Trying to cram all kinds of productivity and creativity and exercise into this first day of 2014. Like setting a precedent for high achievement because I can’t seem to let go of doing. If this is the Year of Unplugging, I’ve failed today’s test. On the computer by 7:00 a.m.; cleared my InBoxes; worked; tweeted; read; responded.

Return to Real: Getting Back to the Tangible

I think in the same way 2014 will be the year of unplugging, I see many of us gravitating toward the tangible, the physical, to “combat” the overly digitized way we’ve been doing things lately.

4 Tech Trends That Changed Marketing

Over the years, I’ve been asked to give my predictions of where things are going with the web, social and mobile and technology.

For context: I’ve been online since 1987, started the first woman-owned, full-service Internet company in 1995, started an early social media marketing agency in 2006 (before we really called it that), started a social/mobile dev and consulting firm in 2010. I’ve seen a lot of trends and heard a lot of predictions over the years, some that came to fruition, some that haven’t yet.

Breathe…Just Breathe

I was just emailing with a friend about breathing. The importance of meditation and simply breathing. She is around my age and recently had a heart attack. Suddenly, the act of breathing takes on even greater importance when viewed through our lens of mortality.

Be Present

We try to so to do everything, be everywhere, and somehow our identities or feelings of worth are tied into doing, doing, doing.

The #Unplug Movement

I’ve been talking about “Manageable Tech” for a while now. A few years ago, I even started a podcast and a book project about the topic called Zen of Being Digital. Back then, I couldn’t get a publisher interested in the book because social media marketing books were all the rage. A book about simplifying tech, paring down, unplugging or taking a break? Blasphemy!