Stay-at-Home Tips & Apps for Maintaining (Some) Sanity

Hi. How are you doing? I hope you and yours are doing okay.

Here at the Loren household, we’re trying to stay cognizant of the fact that we are very lucky to be home and safe right now, that being “stuck” at home is a blessing. Hubs is in a service/entertainment industry that is shut down right now, so that is stressful, but in the grand scheme of things, we are okay. We have a place to live, are healthy right now, and have food to eat.

So, I try to take a moment every day to be grateful for those things and grateful for the people who are helping that happen (all the love to grocery store workers, delivery drivers, health care workers, police, firefighters, and everyone else who is on the front lines.)

However, having said all that, it doesn’t mean that being home non-stop with each other is without its difficulties—as I’m sure you’re all experiencing, too. Our routines have been annihilated. Our world is a completely different one than we knew for all of ours lives. It’s a lot.

So, in today’s post, I thought I would share some of the little things that are helping us get through right now in case any may be of help to you.

On Deciding What to Watch - Two Helpful Apps

Most of us are probably watching way more TV and many more movies than we normally would. Usually, it’s not a matter of trying to figure out what to watch but when to find time to watch all the great things people have recommended to you.

However, now that we may have more time to watch, we have new challenges. One of them being that many of us are home with children, so we can’t just put on anything. We have to watch things that are appropriate for the age-level of our kids.

I feel lucky that I only have a 12-year old at home. He’s gotten to an age where I can introduce him to a lot of movies I love because I don’t need to be as careful about curse words or mild sexual innuendo. But sometimes it’s still hard to tell if a movie is safe for him to watch or not. So, one of my favorite websites/apps that I have been using on a daily basis lately is Common Sense Media.

Common Sense Media

This website has a huge database of movies, and not only does it give age recommendations, it gives actual breakdowns of the levels of sex, violence, language, positive messages, etc. for each movie.

If you click on those ratings, it tells you the actual content from the movie that applies. So, for instance, if you click on the sex rating, it will say (as was the case when I looked up Nightmare on Elm Street the other night) specifically what is seen. So, in that movie, it was teens have sex and you hear sounds, but then only the end when they’re done is seen. No nudity. At another point, you see the side of a breast in shadow.

This is enormously helpful because you know your own kid and what you think they can handle or not handle. For instance, I know my son isn’t particularly scared by horror movies with supernatural stuff because he’s a logical guy who doesn’t believe in that stuff (which is SO unlike me as a kid, when I was definitely convinced my room was haunted.) So, a movie that would keep another kid up with nightmares, is usually fine for my kiddo. However, anything with nudity beyond a bare butt for comedy’s sake (like every Will Ferrell movie), I’m going to rule out.

In addition to all the ratings, they also include parent and kid reviews of the movies, which are super helpful not just for gauging content but to see if kids generally like the movie. I want to share a lot of my favorite 80s and 90s movies with my son. Some translate well. Some age badly. So seeing what other kids his age thought of the movie can help.

This website and the app are free, but I’d absolutely pay for this service. It’s fantastic.

Just Watch

The next app/website I find myself opening all the time is the Just Watch app. I am not one to scroll through my streaming services and choose what to watch. I tend to be someone who gets an idea of what movie or TV show I want to watch and then has to find it. As someone who subscribes to a lot of streaming services—Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Apple, Shudder, etc., that can be a lot of work to go in and search each one.

Just Watch saves you the trouble of figuring that out. All you need to do is type in what movie or show you’re looking for, and it will tell you where it is streaming and if it’s included in your subscription or if you have to rent or buy it. It also gives you movie info and things like the Rotten Tomato rating. Quick and easy.

With those two apps in my pocket, I’ve been able to be a pretty good movie curator over at our house. Here are some of the things we’ve watched lately that have been a thumbs up from the whole fam:

• Pitch Perfect

• The Wedding Singer

• Talladega Nights

• A League of Their Own

• Nightmare on Elm Street (but OMG the melodramatic early 80s horror movie acting)

• Wayne’s World

• Groundhog Day
  
  

On Trying to Focus When Working From Home

I work from home normally, but I’ve never had to work from home while everyone is here with me—a kid homeschooling, me cooking three meals a day, a husband popping in to ask questions or to get me to go on a walk. I have pretty high focus, in general, because I’ve worked over the years to hone that. However, this has knocked me for a loop. Constant interruption is tough. So here’s what I’m doing:

Focus @ Will

I’ve used Focus @ Will for years now, so that part is nothing new. But I’m having to use it in a different way. This website plays music meant for focus (so it’s different than just putting classical music on Spotify.) You can choose your theme. I pretty much live on the cinematic setting. You set your time for a session, there’s a Pavlovian style “ding” sound that indicates a session has started (and is embarrassingly effective at cueing me that it’s time to work) and then the music starts.

Usually, I just listen through my desktop, but since the stay-at-home order, I’ve figured out that I need to use it with headphones when other people are home. I can’t get into deep focus otherwise. So when it’s time to write (because I still have a book deadline coming up), I put on my headphones, hit play, and then try to have at least an hour of uninterrupted time. It’s effective. My son tapped my shoulder the other day when I was in deep work mode under headphones, and I nearly levitated out of my chair, lol. He thought it was hilarious.

Social Media Break

Right now, it’s hard not to get consumed by media in all its forms. There is a lot to know, but there is also a lot of noise. I realized that I was getting lost in the despair of social media and needed a break. I’ve done 30-Day social media breaks and such before, so I know they can work to quiet my mind.

So, last week I took the week off from social media. It helped a lot. I’m back on now but limiting my dose. I’m finding Instagram is generally uplifting right now, so I’m giving myself some time there. Facebook I’m limiting because it’s a mixed bag. I’m still avoiding Twitter because I find the amount of negative posts there far outweigh the positive ones. So, consider taking a break or curating which channels you check. We want to connect socially while stuck at home, but it doesn’t have to be in ways that make us feel bad or drained after using them.

On Trying to Sleep

Everyone at my house has been having trouble sleeping. All the anxiety, disruption of routine, and lack of energy expenditure have contributed. We’ve had some rough nights with kidlet knocking on our door because he couldn’t sleep or me tossing and turning until four a.m. And when we don’t get sleep, everyone suffers because we’re all in bad moods.

So this past week, we’ve been working on a few things, trying to see if it will help. I’m happy to report that we’ve found a couple of things that seem to be working.

Headspace & Meditation

I’ve tried meditation off and on through the years. I tend not to stick with it, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t found it helpful. This time, I decided to try it with kidlet because he was having so much trouble settling down at night. In the past, I’ve used the Calm app and liked it, but after researching, I found that Headspace had some kid options and was a bit more simplified. So I went with that one.

For the past few days, I’ve been doing a 5-10 minute meditation with kidlet before bed. Most of the ones we’ve done focus on breathing, on counting backward, on relaxing muscles, etc. So it’s been easy for him to follow. We’ve noticed a difference. The nights we’ve meditated, he hasn’t come knocking on our door in the middle of the night. And now he’s asking for it, “Can we meditate before bed, mom?” So I’m really happy with how it’s helping. I’ve done some sessions separately from him when it’s time for me to go to bed, and it has helped my racing thoughts. So two thumbs up on the meditation.

Not Watching the News at Night

This one is tough because with everything going on, we feel like we need to be constantly updated. However, I think part of the reason I wasn’t sleeping was because we were watching the nightly news right before we went to sleep. Even if we watched something funny or lighthearted, afterward, the effect lingered.

The past fews days I’ve avoided watching the news after the 6 o’ clock news, and it’s helped. I still watch Good Morning America when I wake up and then that 6pm news. That keeps me updated enough. I don’t leave the TV on in the background. I don’t watch the endless press conferences. I don’t need my brain in crisis mode 24/7. (I’ve talked about this before in this post: Self-Care for the Highly Sensitive Person - It’s Okay to Step Away From the News

On Keeping Spirits Up

One of the most important things right now is keeping our spirits up. Because if we don’t actively try to do this, it’s really easy to fall into a pit of despair. That does no one any good. So here are some of the things that are helping us keep our mood from crashing:

Sunlight & Walks

As someone who has suffered from a Vitamin D deficiency in the past, I’m a sunlight evangelist. (Also, I’d recommend still taking some Vitamin D in a pill because most of us don’t get enough naturally.) Sunlight gives us so many things—vitamin D, a mood lift, and help setting our body clocks. And especially right now, with all of us spending so much time inside, sunlight can feed the soul.

Now, you need to do this in a safe way. If you live in a tightly packed area, this might mean just going out on your balcony or standing in front of an open window. But if you have the ability and the space, going outside daily for walks in the sunshine or just to sit on your porch can be so helpful.

We’re very lucky that the new house we moved into is in a rural-ish area so we have lots of animals to see on our walks. But it’s nice just to see the grass and flowers sprouting for Spring, hear the birds singing. It’s a reminder for me that the world goes on. This too shall pass.

Here are some of our animal friends we’ve seen lately:

A To Do List & Routines

I’m a person who thrives on routines and To Do lists, so this is a given for me if I want to maintain sanity. But even for my kiddo and husband, who are more flexible than I am, need some kind of routine. Getting up in the morning and not having anything to do, no purpose to the day, can become depressing really quickly.

I’m currently in the position of having too much to do—book deadline, putting together a class, taking a different class, blogging, newslettering, etc. So my problem is opposite—how to fit it in while having everyone home. But my husband who is used to being crazy busy with his job doesn’t have that kind of list while his job is mostly on pause. So he’s had to make sure to set goals for the day, little things sometimes, but tasks he wants to get done. And my kiddo has homeschool and online music lessons, so he has some tasks going, but it’s been a challenge to impose new routines.

So, if you’re finding yourself feeling unmoored during the day, don’t rule out making an old fashioned To Do list. And it doesn’t have to be something practical like cleaning the kitchen. Maybe you want to reorganize your bookshelves by color of cover or you want to pick up a cookbook and learn some new recipes. It may mean that you want to make a list of shows you’ve been meaning to binge watch. Start a movie/TV journal to record your thoughts about what you’re watching or a book journal.

Find a project. It can do wonders.

A Treat to Look Forward To

Kidlet and I have been doing a lot of baking of desserts. Normally, we only have desserts in the house on special occasions because we’re trying not to eat too much sugar and all that. However, during this time, though you don’t want to go crazy with eating junk because that won’t make you feel very good, it can be really nice to have a treat to look forward to. Knowing that after dinner, we have a homemade dessert is a nice uplifting thing. And there’s no shame in using boxed mix (like this delicious cinnamon crumble cake below.)

And it may not be desserts for you. It may be an activity or a TV show or a book. But have something to look forward to each day, a little something that maybe you normally wouldn’t have if we weren’t in this situation, can really help.

Board Games

We need a break from all the screens sometimes, and board games are a great option. If you’re competitive like my family, it’s also a guaranteed way to take our focus off of what is happening in the world and getting lost in an activity together.

Some of our favorites lately have been Ticket to Ride and Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries (best for 3 players), Scattergories, Upwords, and Yahtzee. The latter three are good if you’re too tired to focus. The first two require more strategy.

Reading

I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but I wanted to bring this one up because I’ve noticed my reading habits have changed during this. I’m having more trouble focusing on reading, even though that’s something I normally do to relax. And just an observation, but it seems that people who normally aren’t voracious readers are reading more now, but those of us who are heavy readers are having more of a struggle. It’s almost like whatever is opposite our norm is what’s happening during this crisis.

So, if you happen to be one of those heavy readers who is having trouble reading, I encourage you to consider reading outside your normal zone. Shake up your routine a little. Maybe it’s a different genre or subgenre. Maybe it’s doing an audiobook instead of an ebook. (You can join my Read Wide challenge and get a list of different categories and genres to work through.) For me, I picked up a paranormal romance. I read those on occasion, but it’s not my main zone, and it seems to be engaging me more. I’m also reading a non-fiction book in between when I can’t focus on fiction.

Or, you may be the opposite and need to lean heavily into your reading comfort zone. Maybe that means re-reading old favorites because it gives you some stability to know what’s coming.

All I’m saying is that if your normal reading routine isn’t working, shake it up and see if you can come at it from another angle because I know, for most of us, reading is food for our soul and needed.

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All right. I know I’ve thrown a lot at you, but I hope you’ve found something in there that’s helpful. I’m sending you and your family love and well wishes. Be safe, y’all. Stay home. Stay sane. <3

—Roni

Seeking Balance: The Friday-Only Social Media Plan

In the past few months, I’ve been blogging a lot about my relationship with social media and figuring out how to manage distractions. Really, it’s been a topic on my mind for years, and I’ve come at it in a number of different ways.

If you missed those posts, here’s a quick recap. In February, I did a month with no social media or what Cal Newport calls a digital declutter. I went into my reasons in that initial post. I completed the month successfully and recapped what the experience was like, what I learned, and what I was going to try to do going forward. I also did a post about how I’ve retrained my brain for Deep Work over a two and a half year time period by limiting distractions. Then most recently, I blogged about how, after all this work to corral my own distractions, I didn’t want to be a distraction for you, so I wrote about what I would share and not share online going forward in my post I Am Not Here to Distract You.

See? Told you I’ve been a bit obsessed with this topic, lol. And that’s not even counting all my Device-Free Summer posts about my kidlet from years past.

So, here I am talking about it again because since that month without social media, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to recapture the benefits of that fast while still maintaining a social media presence—something that is a part of my job as a writer. In my post where I outlined what I hoped to do going forward to tame social media, I had high hopes. But I admit that I haven’t stuck to a big chunk of those plans (like only checking social media at lunch.) It’s frustrating.

One thing I’ve learned about myself is that in most habits I want to break, I tend to be an abstainer and not a moderator. (I got this terminology from Gretchen Rubin. See: Are You an Abstainer or a Moderator?) A moderator is a person who can just have a little of something (hence, moderate.) So they want to eat less sugar, but they don’t have to give it up completely. They have the personality that can have one cookie a week and move on.

In the past, I fancied myself a moderator. Because in some situations, I am. (I can make Halloween candy last months. But that’s because I only like candy a little bit.) However, in general, I’ve realized that I’m much more successful as an abstainer. It’s easier for me to have/do something none of the time than some of the time. For instance, about fifteen years ago I wanted to stop drinking soft drinks (diet or otherwise.) I failed at moderating. But once I said, no more, I am not a person who drinks soft drinks—then it was done. Fifteen years later, I still don’t drink them and I’m not tempted to. (This is coming from someone who used to drink like half a dozen Diet Mt. Dews a day.)

Abstaining takes the decision fatigue out of play. I just don’t do that, so there’s no debate to be had. That was why by the halfway point in the social media fast, I had this sense of ahh… I don’t have to think about that. The decision was made. I am not a person who does social media this month.

But, social media isn’t soft drinks. It’s a part of my job. It’s a part of life for most of us. It’s not as easy to just say no more ever. However, trying to moderate it hasn’t gone all that well for me. I’m not anywhere near where I was a few years ago or even pre-fast, but the impulse is still there, distracting me. Should I post? What should I post? I’m bored standing in line, let me look at Instagram. Did someone respond to my comment? How about now? Or now? (Note: I’m not making a moral judgement about social media. If you love it and it works for you, you do you. There are parts I love about it, too.)

So during this past month—which OMG May is trying to kill me with how busy it’s been with general life/family stuff—I’ve been trying to work through a very difficult block in the book I’m writing and finish up teaching my beginners romance writing course. Stress level has been high. I needed all my brain power to figure out the puzzle I’d written myself into and to be present for the students in my class. Posting on social media has mostly fallen by the wayside, but checking it…? Yeah, I’m reaching for it a lot because it’s a distraction from the hard things I’ve got to do.

This, of course, has got me thinking about how to find balance again. The next two months are going to be frenetic because I have a lot of writing to do, a family vacation, and then a trip to New York for RWA (which, of course, falls right before I’m supposed to turn in my book, arg.) I need to clear as much non-essential stuff off my plate as I can. Knowing all that made me want to do a summer-long social media break because: abstainer. But I know that’s not realistic for the long-term, so I’ve decided to try a variation.

I’m going to limit social media checking and posting to one day a week—Friday. This way, I don’t ignore people who have reached out to me and I can share/promote things if need be, but I don’t have a decision to make on a daily basis. I will only check it on Friday so that means every other day, the decision is already made. I’m hoping that will trick my abstainer brain into complying. ;)

I got the Friday idea from this post by Sol Orwell: How to Take Fridays “Off” (and still be insanely productive). The post isn’t about social media but more about how we tend to slack off on Fridays and a way to embrace that. So he reserves his Fridays for reading/learning for a few hours (he saves all the articles and such that he comes across during the week for this time) and also does networking on Fridays. That way, he’s still productive, but the things that could be distractions during the week have their place on his schedule. So taking a cue from him, I’m thinking my social networking can have a happy home on Fridays. I’ll also probably put “reply to non-urgent email” as a recurring task on that day as well. So then those things aren’t free-floating around in my head. They have a spot on the schedule and will be handled.

So starting tomorrow, I’m going to give this new plan a try and see how it goes. If it doesn’t work, it may be social media-free summer for me. But I’ll report back! And if you message me on social media and don’t get a reply for a little while, now you know why!

Have you found a great system to balance your social media or other distractions when you have a big project to work on?

I Am Not Here to Distract You: My New Social Media Promise

You know how sometimes random things come together in a way that makes you think of something in a different light? That’s partly a definition of creativity—seemingly disparate things/ideas being brought together to create something new. Well, yesterday I had a few things coincide that got me thinking about how I want to handle my online presence.

As many of you know, I’ve been thinking a lot about social media and distraction lately (and really for a number of years now.) Hence my 30-Day Social Media Declutter (which I wrote about here) and what I learned from it (which I wrote about here.) So this is a topic that is constantly buzzing at a low hum in my mind.

Yesterday, a few things happened that got my gears grinding about this topic again. First, I attended an online workshop about how to do social media well as an author. I enjoyed the workshop and appreciated the information. Much of it was about picking which platforms best suit you and how to be fun and on brand as an author. This can include things like posting funny memes, cute pet photos, and entertaining videos. Things many of us enjoy. Things that many authors do well.

However, when I imagined myself looking for fun cat videos to post or finding cute memes, I kind of winced inwardly because—wow, I see that distraction train roaring down the tracks straight for me. I don’t think I can trust myself to go searching for those things because a) I’ll get lost in the internet black hole (I mean, what’s more tempting than endless cute animal videos?) and b) my perfectionism will make me search endlessly for the “perfect” one to post. Plus, I don’t post photos that aren’t mine or aren’t paid for after getting sued years ago over using a photo on my blog. So, I listened to the advice but also knew that I couldn’t heed some of it. But let’s put a pin in that thought for a moment. Because…

Later that night, I was reading the essay collection On Being 40(ish). This was such a great read, and I really got a lot out of many of the essays. I know I’ll be revisiting a few of them. But one near the end called “I Don’t Have Time for This” by Sophronia Scott really resonated with me. In it, she talks about how her friend called her to be miserable about the election results together. Here’s an excerpt:

“My friend has called me to commiserate. But I’m not miserable. I haven’t given a thought to being miserable. The sun is pouring through the windows of my yellow kitchen, my family is healthy, my friend is on the phone, and I’m glad to hear her voice. So I will try to figure out how to gently put into words the overpowering feeling I have more and more as I walk through middle age: I don’t have time for this.”

She goes on to talk about how her son was a Sandy Hook student who was a few doors down from the shooting and survived and how that gave her new perspective on how precious time is and how it isn’t guaranteed. So, she chooses to focus on the joy in her life and not wallow in the misery. Not sticking her head in the sand but choosing joy in her every day life.

So what could this possibly have to do with me writing about social media? Well, here’s where my brain went. Life is precious. We get our particular amount of time on this planet and then it’s done. I’ll turn forty this year. What do I want to do with the rest of my time? How do I want to spend those limited minutes? Which led me to…

Do I want to spend my time searching for cute dog memes to post?

And secondly…

Do I want to contribute to using up YOUR minutes with trying to keep you looking at my page and distracting you from your life?

The answer felt really clear in that moment. I’m not here to distract you. I don’t want that to be part of my job. Yes, I want to write the best books I can, and some people might see reading romance as a distraction, but I see reading a good story as an experience or a chosen respite. Time reading a book rarely feels like wasted time to me—unless the book was terrible, lol. Even watching TV shows usually doesn’t feel like wasted time to me. A good story well told is something that makes me happier. But when I get lost in the internet hole of social media or random videos or top ten posts, I rarely feel better for it.

And frankly, with all my blogging about reclaiming focus and taking breaks from social media and doing device-free summers, it feels hypocritical of me to post fluff to keep algorithms fed and you seeing my page. Note: This is absolutely not a judgment of anyone who does post those things or the countless number of people who enjoy the content. My husband starts many of his days with cat videos because that gives him a happiness boost before he goes to work. There’s nothing wrong with that. This is not about what should be posted or shouldn’t. This is a personal decision about what I feel aligns with who I am and what I want to give you.

When you visit my blog or read my newsletter or see something on my Facebook page, I want you to feel like you’ve gotten something of value out of it. It doesn’t always have to be serious, of course. Despite the tone of this post, I’m not a particularly serious person. Fun and laughter have great value. But I also don’t want my contribution to be filler that I’m posting just to keep the algorithms happy and eyeballs on my sites. I want it to be things that aren’t on a million other pages. My goal for my blog is for you to walk away with something to think about or a great book recommendation or a new TV show to try out. My goal for my newsletter is to make it good enough that people would actually pay to subscribe to it (I’m not going to charge, don’t worry. But that’s how I judge how much I like a newsletter: would I pay a subscription fee for this?)

Basically, I want to add value not distract.

And yes, of course I want you to buy my books. I really, really do! :) My family likes to eat and, you know, have a roof over our heads and stuff. (So high maintenance!) But I have to believe that if I put everything I have into writing quality stories (which involves me concentrating and not spending too much time on social media either) that you will still buy my books—even if I’m not constantly in your feed reminding you that I’m alive and have something to sell.

How about this? I work to give you good things to read and aim not to waste your time. You occasionally buy one of my books and tell your friends to read them. Deal? ;)

My promise to you:

1. I won’t blog unless I feel I have something interesting to talk about or offer you.

2. My newsletter will remain focused on providing you with quality content. It’s full of these posts plus extra content including what I’m reading, what books I’ve bought lately, and behind the scenes photos.

3. All book recommendations on this blog or any of my social media channels will continue to be non-sponsored content. I don’t accept books for review, so anything I recommend is being recommended because I enjoyed it.

4. I will continue to write the best stories I can (which sometimes means being a slacker on social media.)

5. I will do my best not to waste your time and will be grateful for any time you choose to share with me.

Thank you for being here.

And if you want to keep up with my posts along with exclusive content, sign up for my newsletter. This is, by far, the easiest way to keep up with me, no social media checking required.

Have a great weekend!

What newsletter would you pay for? I’m always looking for great new ones to check out. :)

Roni Recommends - Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day

I know it’s going to come as no surprise that I love reading productivity books, but because I read so many, it’s often hard to find one that stands out. A lot of them are just more of the same. This is actually why I didn’t buy the book I’m recommending today when it first came out. The summary looked a lot like other books I’d read and so I passed it by. However, when I saw it recommended somewhere else, I decided to give it another look. I’m so glad I did.

Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky was a delight to read. First off, it’s just a really nice physical book. Book nerds (like me) will appreciate how thick the paper is, and the layout and design of the pages makes it super easy to read. There are also a lot of fun little illustrations. It almost feels like reading a really great blog on paper. So, though I have nothing against ebooks, you might want to spring for the hardcover on this one.

As for the content inside, the book focuses on how to make time using a simple paradigm which involves choosing a highlight for the day, learning how to laser focus on it, reflecting on how it went, and also making sure you have enough daily energy to get things done. Sounds simple enough, but what I enjoyed about the format of the book was that the authors take each of the four areas in the paradigm and give you a bunch of different tactics to choose from to help implement it.

For instance, in the Laser section, there are over 40 separate tactics they describe that can help you focus better. Things like how to make your phone screen distraction free. (I’m trying a version of this, see pic) or how to wrangle TV time or finding a soundtrack for “flow.” It’s a choose-your-own-adventure style. They’re not saying “do all these things.” They’re saying, here are a bunch of ways you might try. Experiment with combinations and see what works for you.

I found the Highlight, Laser, and Reflection sections really helpful and thought-provoking. I wasn’t as into the Energy section just because I’d rather read advice on eating, exercise, etc. from experts in those particular fields. (Though I did enjoy the tactics about caffeine.)

Overall, this was a quick read that I thoroughly enjoyed and will keep on my shelf. I love that you can just flip to a tactic for a refresh. It really is like having a helpful blog bound into a book. So if you’re looking for a productivity book that is fast-paced, fun, and helpful, you might want to give this one a try.

Here is the official description:

From the New York Times bestselling authors of Sprint, a simple 4-step system for improving focus, finding greater joy in your work, and getting more out of every day.

Nobody ever looked at an empty calendar and said, "The best way to spend this time is by cramming it full of meetings!" or got to work in the morning and thought, Today I'll spend hours on Facebook! Yet that's exactly what we do. Why?

In a world where information refreshes endlessly and the workday feels like a race to react to other people's priorities faster, frazzled and distracted has become our default position. But what if the exhaustion of constant busyness wasn't mandatory? What if you could step off the hamster wheel and start taking control of your time and attention? That's what this book is about.

As creators of Google Ventures' renowned "design sprint," Jake and John have helped hundreds of teams solve important problems by changing how they work. Building on the success of these sprints and their experience designing ubiquitous tech products from Gmail to YouTube, they spent years experimenting with their own habits and routines, looking for ways to help people optimize their energy, focus, and time. Now they've packaged the most effective tactics into a four-step daily framework that anyone can use to systematically design their days. Make Time is not a one-size-fits-all formula. Instead, it offers a customizable menu of bite-size tips and strategies that can be tailored to individual habits and lifestyles.

Make Time isn't about productivity, or checking off more to-dos. Nor does it propose unrealistic solutions like throwing out your smartphone or swearing off social media. Making time isn't about radically overhauling your lifestyle; it's about making small shifts in your environment to liberate yourself from constant busyness and distraction.

A must-read for anyone who has ever thought, If only there were more hours in the day..., Make Time will help you stop passively reacting to the demands of the modern world and start intentionally making time for the things that matter.

Buy the book

After the 30-Day Social Media Ban: What Surprised Me & What I'm Changing

A month ago, I posted here and announced that I was going on a monthlong Digital Detox/Social Media Ban. I made the decision to give it a try after reading Cal Newport’s new book Digital Minimalism. You can read the original post here if you missed it. But now I’m back with my report from the land without social media!

To be honest, I didn’t expect this experiment to be all that revelatory. I have been working on dialing back my digital distractions for about two years now. I’ve been blogging about that journey along the way. I thought a month without social media would be a good break and “detox” because I was annoyed that I was checking my phone so often again. However, it ended up being a lot more enlightening than I ever expected.

First, a play-by play

Week 1 - This is harder than it looks

I went into this way too confident, y’all. Smug, even. I got this, I thought. Ha. Week One told me to have a seat and rethink that notion. The initial week was tough! I kept picking up my phone and swiping to the screen that usually held my social media apps, and I had nothing to push because I had deleted them. The reflex was a hard one to break.

Also, I had posted about my social media break, and I wanted to see what people had to say about it, but I couldn’t. The need to get that little mental boost (aka dopamine) that people are reading your posts was real. I had to take my social media shortcuts off my desktop because I found myself too tempted to “just check.”

My Book of the Month came in the mail, and I wanted to take a pic for Instagram, and I realized I had nowhere to post it. I didn’t take a pic. (This would become a theme. I took a lot less photos in general.)

Day 5 - The Black Moment

In fiction, you eventually lead characters to the “all hope is lost” moment, which we call the black moment. My black moment on this journey hit at Day 5. I was really missing chatting with people online and checking social media. I yearned for it, lol. I felt this haze of loneliness even though I was still texting with friends and had my family around me. Day 5 made me question whether I could do it.

My guess is that when people try these social media breaks and give up, it’s probably around this day in the process. But wait! Hold out! Because…

Day 6 - Holy productivity, Batman!

The day after I was missing social media, I sat down in my office and started a stretch of days that would become some of my most productive ever. This month, I was working on putting together a new online romance writing course for beginners. In three days, I wrote 17k words of lectures. I hit a level of flow and deep work that I didn’t think I was capable of. I blogged more about that here, but I was able to manage four hours straight of focused work without any struggle. I was so excited that I was getting so much done, the yearning for social media began its rapid decline.

Week 2 - Traveling & Scandal

I put a similar background on my phone to remind me what I should be doing instead of picking it up. This one is from Austin Kleon and you can grab it here.

During week two, I traveled with my family to Florida for the Daytona 500. This meant sitting in airports, flying on planes, and then having a lot of downtime in the hotel room in between races—all with no social media. Normally, I would’ve been posting photos from the trip and scrolling through my feeds. Instead, I read in the downtime. I ended up reading one and half books on the three-day trip. Also, in some of the downtime in the room, my family and I used the Heads Up app to play the game and fill the time. We ended up laughing to the point of tears. I’m not sure I would’ve thought to bring out the game if I hadn’t been on the social media fast. I was bored. It gave me the idea to play the family game.

It was a little strange not being able to post pictures or video from the trip, but that just meant that I could keep my phone tucked in my bag for most of the trip. I did share some photos in my newsletter.

Another thing that happened in week two was a big plagiarism scandal in the romance writing community. Normally, when this kind of thing happens, all the social media networks light up with the “breaking news” and then everyone’s take on it. I have lost whole days in the past following that kind of thing. Instead, because I wasn’t on social media, I was alerted about it by a friend via text, and she sent me the link for blog posts about it after the facts were straight. It was so much calmer learning about what was going on from a well thought-out blog post rather than the 100mph feeds and noise of social media. The lesson here was that I wasn’t uninformed. I still heard about it. But I could get the information in a calmer way.

Week 3 - I’m a believer

I stopped missing social media. I honestly, truly did. I was drunk on productivity and focus, y’all. Lol. Being able to have that level of intent focus and mental flow without even trying was like playing with a new toy. It reminded me of how things used to be when I was in high school and college, when I could deep dive into projects for hours at a time. I wrote a novel when I was fifteen. There’s no way that would’ve happened if I’d grown up with Facebook in my pocket. I used to be able to concentrate. Now, I had the ability back. It felt like magic.

Week 4 - Finishing and Fear

This past week, I had days where I worked in deep work mode for 7 hours, only stopping briefly midday to eat lunch. The online class I thought would take me another 3 weeks minimum to get ready was done. Not only done, but edited, uploaded, and open for enrollment. That is crazy banana pants to me. I finished the project almost a month ahead of schedule. I know it had everything to do with this experiment.

I use the music program Focus @ Will for background music, and it tracks how long you use it. I only have it on when I’m actively working. So this is what my days started to look like. That’s 7 hours of focused work if you’re math-challenged like I am. Seven hours!

However, with that thrill of success came a hint of fear about coming back to it all. I knew from the start that I wouldn’t leave social media forever. Beyond being part of my job, I am a member of a number of author groups online that truly bring me joy. BUT I didn’t want to lose this newfound superpower. I knew I needed to figure out a way not to fall back into old habit. So that’s what I’ll be talking about in the rest of this post.

But first, a recap of what I gotten done in a month without the social media distraction:

• Wrote 33k words of lectures for the class.

• Edited 55k words.

• Researched teaching platforms and learned how to use one.

• Created worksheets for the class.

• Blogged and wrote newsletters.

• Created a slideshow and promo video for the class.

• Loaded and formatted 7 weeks worth of lectures into the class platform.

• Rebuilt the format of my author newsletter.

• Set up text to speech on my blog (if you click the little button next to the title, it will read the post to you.)

• Read 8 books. Eight!

• Went on a vacation and didn’t work.

• Opened my course for enrollment (there are still a few spots left at the beta price if you’re interested)

• Spent more time with my family without my face in my phone

Observations

• I took less photos (not sure if that’s a good or bad thing.)

• The time I spent on my phone (according to Screen Time) was about 2 hours a day. This is down about an hour from usual (7 hours added to my week!) This experiment didn’t make me stop using my phone completely. Almost all time spent on it was text messaging, reading articles on Safari, and podcasts.

• The morning was often when I missed social media the most because my husband would grab for his phone, and I’d have nothing to do for those first few minutes before I got out of bed. I ended up reading articles most of the time.

• Sometimes it was inconvenient not to have Facebook simply for logistical purposes. Restaurants only had a FB page or I needed to access one of kidlet’s activities, but they do everything through FB.

• When I blogged, I had no way to share my posts outside of my newsletter, so that felt a little frustrating. (I could’ve shared it remotely without actually getting on social media, but that felt like cheating.)

• I didn’t miss anything urgent or important while I was gone. I signed on yesterday and had hundreds of notifications, but nothing was urgent. (Also I found out that Instagram only lets you look back through 2 weeks of notifications, so the other two weeks are lost unless someone tagged me.)

The biggest takeaway

This felt entirely different from the things I’ve done in the past like blocking social media for a few hours while I work or taking a digital sabbath. Those give you a break, but don’t impact the habit. I think this long of a break is much more disruptive in stopping bad patterns and clearing your mind so that you can look at social media with a more skeptical eye. You get a taste of what it’s keeping you from. For me, that was higher focus and productivity but also a sense of calm.

So if you’re thinking about doing something like this for yourself, give yourself the full month. Don’t trick yourself into thinking that quitting for the weekend is going to make any real difference. I also highly recommend reading Digital Minimalism first because Newport gives a lot of tips on how to best set yourself up for the 30 days. If you go cold turkey with no plan on what to replace that social media time with, you’re more likely to give up in that black moment.

Going Forward

Gretchen Rubin talks about in her book Better Than Before that some people are moderators and some are abstainers. Meaning, some people do better with creating a habit by completely abstaining from something: I never drink soft drinks. Others do better as moderators: I only drink soft drinks twice a week.

Most people think they’re moderators, but I have a feeling that more of us would be better as abstainers. There was relief in knowing checking social media wasn’t an option at all. There was no decision to be made. The line was clear. And really, that is how I quit soft drinks fifteen years ago. I went from a four-a-day Diet Mt. Dew habit to zero and never went back. Abstaining was the key for me.

However, with social media, abstaining isn’t realistic for me (and many of you) in the job I’m in. I also don’t want to lose the good things I enjoy about social media like my Facebook groups. But after this experiment, I know that I need to make some serious changes because I don’t want to give up the newfound focus and calm.

My plan for bringing social media back into my life

1. Put 20 minute daily limits (via Screentime feature) on Facebook and Instagram on my phone.

   I thought that the phone would be the biggest issue for me and, for a while, planned to not put Facebook back on it. But I realized through this experiment that the phone was much less of a problem than checking on my desktop and disrupting my work day. So I have put these two back on my phone but with strict limits.

   UPDATE (3.18.19): I’ve taken Facebook off my phone again. Having it back for a few days made me realize that even with my best intentions, I find myself checking it more than I want. The 20-minute limits were too easy to get by because I just had to click “ignore limit” and it opened. I’ve left Instagram on my phone because that app doesn’t call to me very much. I’m fine checking that one a time or two a day and that’s it.

2. Turned on the Downtime feature on my phone starting at 8pm and ending at 6am.

   This will keep my from randomly checking my phone while I’m watching TV with the fam and hanging out with them.

3. No more social media shortcuts on my desktop.

   They are way too easy to click when I hit a hard spot in my work.

4. I’m keeping Twitter off my phone.

   I was already doing this before and plan to continue.

5. Only check social media on my desktop at lunch time and on weekends.

   This is the one that’s still in flux. I have also considered using my Hey Focus blocking app and blocking access to social media in the morning work zone and afternoon work zone, but I almost feel like I need to lean on that abstainer concept and make it very clear: I only check social media on my computer at lunchtime and on weekends.

   UPDATE (3.18.19): This hasn’t worked so far. I find that I need to check at least Facebook in morning to clear out the messages and respond or not having checked it becomes the distraction. I may shift this to checking in the morning in an allotted time and then at lunch. Still working this one out.

I may tweak these or come up with different methods, but I’ll report back. I have a genuine worry that I’ll fall back into old patterns, and I really, really don’t want to. I have a new book to write, and I love having the focus superpower. I’m thinking of getting a cape. ;)

So…thoughts? Questions? Suggestions? Anyone else going to try their own digital declutter?

And for any writers interested in my course, here’s the video with all the details. I’ll be closing registration soon because we’re getting close to full! Course starts March 30th.