Read this post for an insightful look at how to harness the power of the internet and AI while avoiding burnout and maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
The following is a guest post from my bloggy friend Megan Isola. Interested in having a guest post on my website? Click here for my guest post submission form.
The Art of Digital Balance: Thriving in Both Virtual and Real Worlds
The value provided by the internet cannot be underestimated. With all the possibilities and capabilities created in our digital age, it has become increasingly difficult to maintain a day-to-day lifestyle that is not completely overwhelmed by the internet. It is easy to experience digital overload as we work to keep up with social media, maintain an online business presence, sift through mountains of online content, and more. Maintaining your daily routine and staying grounded is more important than ever as digital technology creeps into more aspects of your life.
How the internet impacts your life
As little as 25 years ago, the internet was not a very important aspect of most people’s lives. With the advent and explosion of social media, e-commerce, smartphones, and an ever-more connected world, the internet and all it offers has become more ingrained in our daily lives. Often, we may not recognize these changes, as they have advanced in a way that has not been obvious unless one compares life today to how things were in the late 1990s.
While the internet has helped and benefited us in some ways, we face new challenges in our digital world. In general, maintaining a presence in the digital world has had a negative impact on our personal lives. Your daily routine and life suffer as you focus your business solutions and personal interactions more on internet-based digital solutions. However, it is possible to live in and interact with a digital world and maintain a presence in the real world.
Creating personalized customer solutions
Although digital technology can make it difficult to meet customer needs, it can also be harnessed to develop solutions to those very challenges. Using technology, especially the advancements made in recent years, it is possible to build personalized options for your customers. In a digital world where everyone is anticipating the answers they find to be specific to their needs, developing custom content that meets those varying needs has become important. However, spending all your time anticipating what your customers want and then customizing your content to those desires will overwhelm you.
Leveraging the power of AI applied to data on your customers, you can automatically generate content directly applicable to those customers. While many businesses are experiencing setbacks when it comes to the impact of AI on their business model, as a digital content creator, you can make the most of the advancing technology to provide your customers with meaningful content and solutions. Your customers will appreciate that you are anticipating their needs and speaking directly to them, and you will appreciate how much time is freed up to focus your efforts on other aspects of your life.
Make an escape
Occasionally, it can be beneficial to escape from the digital world. You may not recognize how much of an impact the internet and digital world have on your life until you step away and focus on other aspects of your life. For many people, this digital detox can go so far as to avoid all technology for an afternoon, a day, or an entire weekend. Often, though, even something as simple as not touching your smartphone for a period of time can help you realize that it is important to take a little break.
When you escape from the digital world, you can do a sort of reboot of your overall lifestyle. If you are not focusing your energies on the internet and a digital presence, whether that be in your personal or professional life, you will find that not only does your non-digital life improve, but you will gain a new perspective on how to address those challenges presented by the digital world. Keeping abreast of the latest developments is important, but think about the fact that you are not going to miss much in a few hours, a day, or a weekend. That time can be better spent in the physical world, completing tasks or interacting with friends and family in person.
Managing stress
Everyone experiences a point where keeping up with and utilizing digital technology becomes more stressful than the supposed benefits cover. Whether it is keeping up with social media or managing an online presence, our digital world can be overwhelming on different levels. Managing the stress these challenges create is important for ensuring you can escape from digital overload and separate these aspects of your lifestyle.
Although you will experience a variety of stressors in your day-to-day life, managing the stress caused by technology has become more important as that same technology has made its way into more aspects of our lives. The stress caused by digital technology can have an impact on your health, which is compounded by the natural stressors we all experience due to age, diet, and overall health. By managing the stress in your life, especially the stress due to digital technology, you can ensure general health benefits, advancing your lifestyle, while still managing to maintain a presence in the digital world we all inhabit.
Exploring other options
If you are looking for ways to minimize the negative impact of the internet and digital technology on your lifestyle, try to evaluate all the areas in which you experience these technologies in your daily life, and then explore whether there are alternatives that are not so heavily reliant on the internet. For example, if you run an online business, there may be technological solutions to minimize the effort required to engage your customers. In your personal life, interacting with others via non-technological means can help build those relationships, and allow you to escape from the digital world.
It is important to understand that we live in a digital world, whether we like it or not. But you do not need to let that digital world affect the other aspects of your lifestyle. Keeping informed about what new technologies and solutions are available to help manage your digital life to benefit your overall lifestyle, while simultaneously exploring non-digital opportunities to interact with life, can help you stay grounded in all aspects of your life.
About the Author
Megan Isola holds a Bachelor of Science in Hospitality and a minor in Business Marketing from Cal State University Chico. She enjoys going to concerts, trying new restaurants, and hanging out with friends.
