POSTS TAGGED : calendar

020 : Gotta keep hustling with Laura and Sara of DigitalFlash

Laura Sarah DigitalFlashHave you ever gone to an event and thought it was just “meh”? Maybe you signed up because of the awesome lineup of panelists, but the questions posed by the moderator were just boring and there wasn’t any opportunity to ask questions. Or maybe the food sucked and all you wanted was a drink.

Laura and Sara met at a networking event that just didn’t suit their tastes. But they didn’t let it bother them — they turned their experiences into opportunity. Both Sara and Laura knew that together, they could throw amazing events, and they did just that.

DigitalFlash grew out of a desire for the types of events that the cofounders wanted to attend, and people responded. In this podcast, the two co-founders share how their events grew and how they started creating digital experiences for larger companies. If you visited the Samsung booth at the 2014 SXSW, you were a part of their work.

These two women are the very definition of the word hustle — they even left a convention floor in Vegas to appear on this podcast! They never stop.

If you need some motivation to keep on keeping on, this is the episode for you.

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5 easy changes that will drastically improve your life

When building new habits or learning new skills, it’s important to focus on the smallest changes that will result in the biggest results. This is known as the Pareto principle, or the 80-20 rule, which states that “for many events, roughly 80 percent of the effects come from 20 percent of the causes.” This is an extremely powerful rule, because it means that you can have a huge impact on your life, or your work, by simply focusing on the right tasks.

I’ve compiled a list of five easy changes that will have a huge impact on your quality of life. These aren’t huge systems nor will you have to change your entire life around. Rather, they’re small habits that will become second nature in a couple of weeks yet have long-lasting effects on your productivity and mental state. Continue reading →

Getting busy and being social for the socially awkward

Dann's busy calendar

A few years ago I found myself out of a long-term relationship and suddenly had nothing but free time. As a homebody, both in and out of relationships, this was fantastic. I’d take the long way home after work, pop in a movie, and relax. I steadily worked my way through my Netflix queue. I didn’t feel rushed, had no real obligations outside of work, and set all my own rules. It was glorious.

Soon, however, I began craving social interaction, with some caveats. I did not want to be busy every night of the week; I was enjoying my time to myself way too much. I had no interest in loud bars or clubs, paying for uninteresting movies because I was invited, or staying out until all hours of the night. Whenever I’d ask someone what was going on, it usually tended to fall into one of these categories. Continue reading →