Nicole's Summary: Conference on Meaningful Living and Learning in a Digital World 2016

Conference summary by: Nicole Marcisz Instructional Designer Instructional Design & Technology

http://meaningful.mozello.com/

Overall notes, tips and key take-aways

There were many themes of balancing work and life both personally and as we teach our students

To some degree everyone probably struggles with finding a balance with work, family, life, and perhaps school. The good news is that we can personally take control and formulate solutions to achieving the balance. The bad news is that sometimes the pursuit of balance itself compounds the stress! We really need to be proactive by gathering tools and seeking knowledge and information on how to accomplish balance.

Personal

•  Learn to recognize when you are out of balance. (ideally we want this to occur before you get sick or end up in ER) DO NOT ignore the warning signs! Listen to your body.
• Get real and assess your smart phone addiction. BreakFree is an app that acknowledges your smartphone addiction and helps you break it by recording the amount of time you spend on it.
•  How long can you go without your smartphone? Reflect on this.
• Research from 2015 shows that on average adults check their cell phone 46X a day. How many times in an hour do you touch your smartphone?

o   Do you suffer from FOMO? Fear of missing out

o   What about FOBO? Fear of being offline

o   Nomophobia- the fear of being separated from your smart phone!

o   Reflect on if your smart phone adds to your stress or relieves it.

o   Make a list of all the positive things about the digital world that you like

o   Make a list of all the negative things about the digital world that you don’t like

• Work email on your personal device- is this a good thing or not so good? Pros/cons; expectations?
• Do you have personal boundaries for using your device, social media, work email etc? It is important to make a list of boundaries for yourself and then share it with your circle of people in your life. Maybe even make a list of exceptions for certain situations. Identify non-negotiable social norms. Be honest with friends, family, co-workers, on how it makes you feel. Often times people are oblivious to how their behaviors may affect other people.  
• Practice a digital detox every now and then. Establish offline times (for example, the phone is shut off during dinnertime, family time, 2 hours before bed, during the night, etc.
•  Reflect and make a list of what causes stress in your life. What small changes can you make? How might you leverage your smart device to assist?

With students (as we teach)

Be conscious and thoughtful of student challenges as they try to balance work and life in a digital world. We identified a variety of challenges

• Students sometimes have a hard time leveraging technology to their advantage
• Engagement      
• Managing their time
• Discerning fact from fiction; Finding and choosing valid and reliable information,
• Prioritizing their time

A few solutions on how we can encourage and assist students to cut down on stress and balance better

• Strive for achievement rather than perfection
• Assist with planning strategies- course planners/milestones/tips for success
• Identify limitations and strategize how to overcome
• Reminders about support avenues

• Know your students! If you find that many of your students are working moms or single parents formulate communities. One suggestion was to have a social forum for easy meal planning, perhaps an exchange of tips and ideas.
• The balancing of work, family and school can be challenging. We talked about tips for family such as (delegating, learn to say no, establish boundaries etc.
•   Emphasize self-care
•   Celebrate successes and milestones
•  Remind students to “be true to yourself”
• Create student social communities (perhaps at a program level) such as military family students, first generation students, older adults 50+, single parents, working moms, etc.

• Each term, ask your students to assemble a list of what they need to do to be successful in the course. At the end of the term, have the students revisit that list and reflect. If they were to share with the next round of students what is the one thing they would advise for success. How did they overcome challenges? SHARE these with the next round of incoming students to your class. Testimonials go a long way. Especially if you have a particular task in your course that you find time and after time no matter what you tell them they just don’t grasp the purpose or meaning of why they are doing it. (of course being clear about the purpose and expected outcomes (benefits) of the assignment is critical)

What causes burnout among faculty? There are several things that may impact this.

one stressor that we talked about: giving so much to each individual student 24/7. Some solutions:

• Give students tools for success; guide them; mentor them; DO NOT feel obligated to take on the responsibility to FIX the problem.
• Create healthy boundaries for teaching. Communicate this with your students.
• When there are common questions/issues that arise EVERY term consider getting assistance from your friendly instructional designers at your campus to address solutions.
• Create FAQs that become reusable each term.

·        One idea that was generated; enable advisors to play a more active role in assisting students with challenges of school/ life balance. Or within a program/department/ have one or two set mentors ready to assist.

Leveraging digital overload to your advantage (personally)

• Create a filtering and flagging system for your email
• 7 Ways to Manage email so it doesn’t manage you!
• Organize!
• Use apps to help you organize and balance your life
•  IFTTT- If this than that, a macro script writer for your smartphone. (ie. if mother in law calls send straight to voice mail; Silence phone 2 hours before bedtime etc)
• http://www.wsj.com/articles/meet-the-internets-best-productivity-tool-if-this-then-that-1464793511
  
• https://ifttt.com/
  
• https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/if-by-ifttt/id660944635?mt=8

o   CamScanner- stop carrying around business cards, receipts etc, take a quick pic and file it in Evernote.

o   http://www.lifehack.org/275194/14-smart-apps-improve-your-worklife-balance

o   10 iPhone, Android Apps To Master Work-Life Balance

•  Create a personal dashboard (Google site or Evernote)

Mindfulness and Presence; Restoring Balance and Joy in the Present Moment

Basic mindfulness:

Pause quietly in the present moment; Close your eyes; Become aware of senses- what do you hear? Mentally scan body for sensations and whatever you might be feeling; do this in a non-judgmentally. (unfortunately it is human nature to always want to place judgement on everything, especially about ourselves, resist this urge and begin to practice this new way of being present in the moment); practice gratitude! You can start with simple things (ie. food, shelter, employment, family, life, etc) “In this moment I can find joy, peace and calm.” Focus on your breath if your mind becomes cluttered with thoughts

• Schedule guided meditations at certain times of the day (or when you really need it).
• Build in mindfulness practices in your courses for your students. Perhaps before an Exam or as the end of a course approaches.
• Mindfulness cultivates clarity.
• Try mindful coloring! Calm your mind, reduce stress and release your inner child.  Research backs this but honestly it is no-brainer. Just try it and see how it makes you feel.

Stop, Breathe & Think app is a simple tool to guide people of all ages and backgrounds through meditations for mindfulness and compassion.

Mindfulness Training app from Sounds True

Mindfulness: The Art of Being Human app: 2.99 also available on Android.

And of course, there’s YOGA!

Try it! Look for a local yoga center and give it a go. There are so many different kinds of varieties of yoga. There’s more to yoga than downward dog. It is a mindful practice that restores your life in more ways than you can imagine.

Regis friends and colleagues, you can attend weekly yoga right at our Coors-Life fitness center.

or

Our Healthy Living Coordinator, Linnea Bjorkman, will be teaching a free all-levels bilingual yoga class. WHEN: Tuesdays TIME: 10:30a.m. LOCATION: Endorphin Yoga Studio at 4995 Lowell Blvd., For more information contact Linnea Bjorkman: lbjorkman@regis.edu or 303.458.3548

Don’t want to practice in public? Don’t have time to go somewhere? Or maybe you just want to squeeze in 15 minutes of yoga right from the comfort of your office. No problem. There are TONs of resources out there on YouTube.  Here are some recommendations for office yoga from Yoga Journal. http://www.yogajournal.com/category/beginners/how-to/office-yoga/

And YES there are apps for that too so you can practice a little yoga when you need it for free!

Resources for a closer look at mindfulness:

Michel, A., Bosch, C., & Rexroth, M. (2014). Mindfulness as a cognitive–emotional segmentation strategy: An intervention promoting work–life balance. Journal Of Occupational And Organizational Psychology, 87(4), 733-754. doi:10.1111/joop.12072 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joop.12072/full

The Pursuit of Happiness; Bringing the Science of Happiness to Life. Martin Seligman

http://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/martin-seligman-positive-psychology/

The Chopra Center Newsletter: Restore Mind-body Balance. http://www.chopra.com/files/newsletter/Dec11/Dec11-Results.html

7 Reasons Adult Coloring Books are great for your mental, emotional and intellectual health. http://www.mindful.org/calm-your-mind-and-boost-your-creativity-with-adult-coloring-books/