Minisode 18: Resistant to Rest? 5 Reasons Unplugging from Technology Makes You a Better Leader
You hear it all the time, improve it! peeps - unplug, unplug, unplug. Oh, did we mention you should ๐๐ป๐ฝ๐น๐๐ด? ๐ซ๐
Weโll let you in on a ๐น๐ถ๐๐๐น๐ฒ ๐๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐: the repetition is worth it because unplugging is beyond necessary. The question isโฆhow do we know when the time is right to take a break? ๐ค
Todayโs ๐ถ๐บ๐ฝ๐ฟ๐ผ๐๐ฒ ๐ถ๐! ๐ฝ๐ผ๐ฑ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐๐ ๐บ๐ถ๐ป๐ถ๐๐ผ๐ฑ๐ฒ will give you signs to look out for when itโs time to take some space from tech ๐ฅ๐ก๐ช๐จ 5 concrete reasons to #DisconnectToReconnect. Grab your pens and notebooks to jot these down and reread when itโs time for your very own technology hiatus.
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Erin Diehl is the founder and Chief โYes, Andโ officer of improve it! and host of the improve it! Podcast. Sheโs a performer, facilitator and professional risk-taker who lives by the mantra, โget comfortable with the uncomfortable.โ Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin has created improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn and grow. Her work with clients such as United Airlines, PepsiCo, Groupon, Deloitte, Motorola, Walgreens, and The Obama Foundation earned her the 2014 Chicago RedEye Big Idea Award and has nominated her for the 2015-2019 Chicago Innovations Award.
This graduate from Clemson University is a former experiential marketing and recruiting professional as well as a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater, and The Annoyance Theatre.
When she is not playing pretend or facilitating, she enjoys running and beach dates with her husband and son, and their eight-pound toy poodle, BIGG Diehl.
You can follow the failed it! podcast on Instagram @learntoimproveit and facebook, and you can follow Erin personally on Instagram @keepinitrealdiehl here. You can also check out improve it! and how we can help your organization at www.learntoimproveit.com. We canโt wait to connect with you online!
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Minisode 18 Transcription
Erin (00:00):
Welcome to the improveit! Podcast.
Erin (00:11):
The year is 2022. You've undergone two years of a global pandemic, a so social pandemic, countless school shootings, political turmoil, vaccines isolation, reentering the world. More isolation news on news on news and opinions that become news. Do you know how you have received all of this Intel? My improvement peeps through a tiny device that you can hold in the Palm of your hand. This device is in your hand. When you work out, when you meditate, when you shower, it's near the shower, okay? Playing music when you work, when you play with your kids, when you need a break and when you don't need a break, but it calls you to come take a break, pick me up, open me, look at me. Distract. Speaking of breaks, did this monologue not make you want break spit in some harsh truths here? My beautiful improve it pees.
Erin (01:41):
After the past two years, I have realized that a lot of the anxiety that I've been experiencing is due for sure in part to the world around me. And I'm talking about for me, I mean, a global pandemic and a social pandemic had a extreme impact on my life and on my business. But I also realized that all of these opinions and ideas and articles about health were affecting my health. For example, from my phone, I could research my newest statement that I was for sure. Sure was COVID but turned out not to me. I did have COVID once. Okay. And after a quick Google searchin test, it was confirmed. I did have it, but all the other times when I didn't have it, oh, a Google away was my newest statement. I could also find a new recipe for Moscow mules because I missed having cocktails in real life, in restaurants, from my phone.
Erin (02:49):
I could also see what my friends were up to at any moment. Plus hear their opinions on what was going on in the world. Technology is such a blessing. It connects us in so many ways. I'm able to stay connected with my friends who live all over the country and all over the world. I'm able to meet new friends through Instagram, through LinkedIn who have been guests on this show. And now are colleagues in this space. I've been able to find clients and go places I never dreamed of because of this technology, but it can also be all consuming. How can we know when our plates are too full with technology? Just like food. We need to realize when to stop consuming. Because once we over consume, we'll get some negative things set the table, like I don't know, digestive issues, mental health issues. So if we establish boundaries so that we are healthy, just like boundary setting with food, what we put into our minds fuels us what you put into your body as a food item helps you fuels you.
Erin (04:20):
It gives you that fuel that you need for the day. And what you put into your mind fuels you. And what you put into your mind is given power. I realized the impact that technology was having on my life, especially over the past two years, not only was I constantly working on my laptop, which by the way, I have developed severe back issues because I am working from a computer far more than I was pre pandemic. I was also spending many nights doom scrolling. I was feeling like I was always supposed to have an opinion on the latest news headline. I was feeling run down and sad constantly. I was having what we can call compassion fatigue, because there were so many events that continuously happened in our world that we constantly had to keep reacting to. And I was starting to become more consumed with others' lives on social media than my own.
Erin (05:31):
Do you realize how far we've come with technology? I'm 39, 10 years ago. We barely had Instagram. It was like used for filters. I literally went on it to create a filter of a picture. I had no clue how to use it. Facebook had been in existence, so that was a thing. But 20 years ago, oh my God. I was talking to a friend about this other day. I had to carry my mom's iPhone or her not her iPhone, her ancient dinosaur car phone with me, my senior year of high school, because she wanted to get in touch with me wherever I was driving. And I hated it. I literally hated it because I didn't want her to get in touch with me. I was like, you should trust me, mom. I'm doing good things. I wasn't, but you should trust me, mom. I did not like being constantly having access to.
Erin (06:27):
And now 20 years later, all I do is consume things from this piece of technology. That is always with me. I have my iPhone with me. And if you're not an iPhone fan your phone, I have my phone with me always. And I really started to recognize that the past two years were starting to create mental and physical pains in my body and in my mind. So I started to create boundaries. And I'm hopeful that these boundaries that I'm gonna share with you can help you in some way, shape or form, because I will tell you, after implementing them over the past year, I have felt a significant difference in how I show up on my phone. So I use my phone. Like I said, when I work out, I use it cuz it holds my meditations. I use it to play music. When I'm in the shower, I use it.
Erin (07:31):
When I go on walks to call my mom, I use it in the car for my navigation system. I use it to keep track of my child at school. I use it communicate over slack with my team when I'm traveling. There's so many different ways that use this piece of technology. If I, then I just all consumed it of those things are practical for me. My weakness lies in social media and by social media for me, I mean Instagram, LinkedIn, not a big Facebook fan, but Instagram and LinkedIn and then email and slack. Those are the places where I show up the most and where I am constantly thinking about. So here are the boundaries that I've put in place. The first boundary is for social media. I only post in the morning. I give myself 10 minutes to post on LinkedIn and 10 minutes to post on Instagram.
Erin (08:37):
And then I'll check again at the end of the work day. And I'll give myself 15 minutes to comment, to respond to messages, to maybe scroll a little bit. And what are sure. 10 in the that's my first boundary. My second boundary is I do not post anything on social media, not my stories on Instagram, not a comment on LinkedIn. I don't post a single thing on the weekends period. And I try my very best to not scroll. Friday nights are usually where I catch myself scrolling. But after Friday, I'm generally in my weekend with my family feeling lighter without social, to be honest, number three, here's my third boundary. I do the same thing that I do as social as an email. So I just started implementing this recently game changer. I check my email for 15 minutes in the morning and then I check my email for 15 minutes in the evening.
Erin (09:47):
What this allows me to is focus on the prioritized emails first and only allows me 30 minutes day to responding to other people's needs. I do not email on the weekends and I do not slack on the weekends. Now slack messages are different for me. That's how my team communicates. We're all remote. So I will respond to slack messages throughout the day, but I don't even keep my email up anymore. I just keep my slack up. And I only go on email if my team is like, oh, did you see this email from so and so, so it has actually changed the way that I show up in my business. So I will talk about that in just a minute, but I wanna give you these boundaries first and foremost. So my fourth boundary is that I put my phone down and I have that do not disturb on my iPhone, starting at 10:00 PM.
Erin (10:43):
That might seem late to some of you. I cannot go to bed earlier than 11:00 PM. It's just not possible. I don't know why I want to. It's not in my circadian rhythm. Okay. So I put this phone down at 10:00 PM. What I'll do before that is I'll set my schedule for the next day. I'll plan my workout. I will make sure that my day looks clean and that I've got enough todos on there or not. I should say I have just the right amount of todos on there, but at 10:00 PM, phone goes down. I start washing up for bed and then it's reading a book or just relaxing until I can fall asleep. And then number five, I have sacred time, every single weekday with no phone. So from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM, I wake up my son. He naps until five. He's a late Naper, he's still three.
Erin (11:36):
So he goes down at 3:00 PM and he wakes up at five, wake him up at five from five to eight. I do not use my phone unless my husband is outta town and we need to FaceTime him five to 8:00 PM is sacred, no screen time. I gotta tell you my family. And I went to Edisto beach, which is a very remote island in South Carolina here recently. And it's so beautiful. They call it edlo for a reason. And I first got, there was trying to post stuff on a Thursday was checking email by Friday. I said, you know what? I'm done. I'm gonna stick to social media, my email boundaries. I didn't look at email. I did not a social media and only responded to from family for three days. Can I just you how good that felt? It felt so freaking good. So I caught myself actually that Thursday, I was gonna start posting a story on my Instagram about where we were.
Erin (12:42):
And I was literally taking a picture of a coffee mug that said good vibes. And it had a teal background in it. And I was like, oh, this is perfect. This is like my mantra against a te wall. What like, who cares? Number one and number two, why am I taking this photo? Is it for me? No, I loved the mug outta the mug. Aaron, just stop trying to be on all the time. So I literally put the bug down and I said, I'm gonna make a podcast episode about this because right now I am living what I'm trying to tell myself, not to do. And I know if I'm feeling this way, that the improvement peeps are feeling this way. So let me tell you how these boundaries can help you become a better leader. First and foremost, we can use these boundaries to lead our teams, lead our families and feel differently.
Erin (13:47):
So stay tuned. Cause I'm gonna take these boundaries and remind you what you can do with your leadership and with your parenting or wherever you are, friendship, whoever to become a better you. So number one, those social boundaries that put in place, they make times I'm make much of that consuming means that I'm full of opinions and I'm full of ideas. That aren't my own. Number two, not posting on weekends. Makes me a more present parent, a more present friend, a more present partner, a more present daughter, a more present name, your title here. So when I'm taking a picture posting it or I'm trying to create a caption, I'm missing the moments that are happening in front of my face. I will take the pictures. Let me tell you that for free. I will take the pictures, but I won't post them. I'll post them Monday morning. That's when I post them and I will show up at work refreshed. Number three, no emailing and no slacking and limited emailing makes me focus on my priorities.
Erin (15:11):
It makes me focus on the tasks and the to-dos that make our business move forward versus responding to somebody else's needs. Now you have to email. Email is the way that we communicate in this business world. So know that you can't get rid of email completely, but you can get rid of how you respond. And when you respond, if you haven't read the book the four hour work week, I love it so much. It's all about outsourcing and truly, you know, this is the, the title is very what's the word I'm looking for? He's the title makes you wanna buy the book, click bait. That's the work, the word I'm looking for, but really it just comes down to setting boundaries. So it really does help me get the test done and make me not jump from idea to idea, to idea, but focus on my own.
Erin (16:10):
And then when I have those incremented times to go back and respond to emails, I am in the mindset of helping others. So think about that. If a task that you're doing, one of your priorities involves emailing someone then yes, email as part of your task, but don't just sit and respond to emails as they come in. I really wanna challenge you to schedule times of day to check emails and then number four, putting my phone down, having that sacred that time at 10:00 PM to rest, to recharge, to not be panicked about. The next thing allows me to actually be mindful and fall asleep faster. And number five, that sacred time, that time for my family from five to filling my own cup. And actually I'm usually filling's sippy cup at that point, but filling my own cup allows me to give to my priorities, which my priorities are my family first and my business, but my family comes first.
Erin (17:20):
So those three hours really allow me to get into the day what I wanna get out of it. Now these rules, they bend from time to time when I travel or when I have some type of scheduling that's off, let's say have an event or something that makes me have to be on my phone. So know that these are what I try to stick to as much as possible, but they truly make me a better leader, a better parent, a better insert, whatever title I am to you. I want you to try one of these boundaries and let me know how it works. I want you to let me know what you thought of this mini. So, and if you want more about technology and how we can stop allowing it to consume us and how we can create more of what we want in our lives.
Erin (18:12):
So let know info learn to improve it. Do com is our email. Did you like this show? What you're going to implement and what you're gonna do next. I wanna hear from you and know that I'm rooting for you. Keep failing, keep improving because the world needs that very special. It that only you can bring I'll see you next time. Hey friend, did you enjoy today's show if so, head on over to iTunes to rate and subscribe. So you never miss an episode now, did I mention that when you leave a five star review of the improvement podcast, an actual team of humans does a happy dance mm-hmm <affirmative> that's right. So leave a review for us on iTunes, screenshot it and send me an email at info. Learn to improve it. Dot com. I'll send you a personalized video back as a thank you. Thanks so much for listening. Improve it. Pees. I'll see you next Wednesday.