This past session of the WordPress course during the AICI Business Bootcamp was a lesson in finding harmony amongst the chaos of the various technology challenges we faced during the live demonstration. It was a lesson of humility and patience. Yet as we all persevered through the session, I was hoping that bits of knowledge was being imparted and shared amongst the participants.

Finding harmony amidst technology

Working with technology alone is enough to drive the average user into despair. And even those who are well experienced with the systems also tend to face adversity in the face of technology. So some key lessons that were learned and was brought up in the session by Michelle Horne, AICI CIP, was to ensure that if a lesson like this were to be done again, proposing to customize the audience to the level of their comfort (beginner, intermediate, advanced) would be probably be a better approach. My suggestion also after realizing this, is to bring more advanced users to help assist with the “hands-on” approach so I can continue moving the class along, instead of having it interrupted when a participant is falling behind (for whatever reason). Class size also plays a major factor as well.

Despite these challenges, it was an enjoyable group to impart my knowledge of Social Media and WordPress (specifically). For those interested I have put together some mini video’s of the major areas that are covered in the Becoming Familiar WordPress Highlight Guide that was handed out to the participants. Those interested in downloading, please check out this FREE GUIDE link.

If you are trying to find harmony with technology, here are some suggestions which I have implemented into my 12-hour days of programming/designing/ creating.

5 Tips:

1. Each day give gratitude for having the technologies that are presented to us for use and the people involved to bring us the programs, platforms and information to help us utilize the tools.
2. Every 1.5 hour you are sitting in front of your computer, get up and bend forward and backward, stretch and walk around. You may think it interrupts your thought, but the stretch really helps open up the thought waves.
3. When faced with a chaotic situation with your computer or the program you are using, take 3 deep breaths, get up and walk away for at least 5 minutes, then come back. If the problem still persists, try to reboot computer. If it doesn’t boot down, call your local computer service provider. Majority of our frustrations with technology won’t do major harm, so in most cases when working with programs, take a bit of risk. There is always the “Undo” button or keyboard shortcut “Ctrl/Cmd Z”.
4. Proactive actions to deter from losing all your work – set auto save on most of your Office programs, and those that can’t, try to set a ½ hour or even 15 minute reminder to save your work ongoing. Always set up a backup system whether external hard drive or to the “Cloud” (Dropbox, JustCloud, ICloud etc.)
5. Each day make sure you are eating a healthy diet full of fruit/vegetables, whole grains, little to no processed foods. Try to walk daily for a minimum of 15 minutes, meditate for half hour (in one sitting/standing). At the end of the day, give gratitude again for making it through the day!

Balancing life:

Time constraints?
Time is just a concept. The real truth is “what we define” as our priority is what we tend to spend our time on. So the issue is not time, but what we feel is priority.