Take a Selfish Day (or Weekend) Stat!

Mar 30 2012 Published by under Jennifer S. 

by Jennifer S.

I’ll make a confession, I’m writing this blog post at 6:30 pm the day before it will be posted.  You might say, “Jennifer, it’s Friday.  You had the whole entire week to write this post!”  And, you might be right.  But I decided to selfish and disconnect myself this past weekend.  That’s right dear reader, I took Larkin’s post last week to heart and became responsible for my own happiness.

You can find pages and pages of posts out there on why we should take some times for ourselves and how good it is for us, body, mind and soul.  SELF magazine even has a monthly feature that shows how a reader took a “SELF-y day”.  But how many of us actually do this?  I’m guessing a lot of you, like i used, think about taking a day for ourselves but never get around to it.  Is it because you don’t know what to do?

I don’t blame you, even if I’m going to enjoy myself and disconnect from the online world I still want a plan.  Here’s what I did on my selfish weekend, to get you thinking about what you could do in a weekend, an evening or even an hour to make yourself happy!

  • Find a great sale:  If I need to buy something, even if it’s just groceries, I feel a sense of accomplishment when I get a great deal on it.  This weekend, I got two candles for the price of one (the only time I’ll be these candles is when they are BOGO) plus a full-sized hand soap and reusable bag for free.  What is better than getting four items for the price of one?
  • Take a walk:  If you haven’t been listening to the forecast, Minnesota is gorgeous!  Seriously, we are breaking record temperatures set in the early 1900s.  I took advantage of this early summer and walked around my town.  I even found out that there is a park nearby with great walking trails that I went to about three times.  After this winter, it felt great to walk around, in the sunshine, without a coat.
Yes, this is what March in Minnesota looks like.
  • Read some “non-intellectual”:  I had two choices of reading this materials this weekend, Brave New World or a year’s worth of Cosmo.  Yes, I took the trashy magazine route.  After reading blog posts that are suppose to make me think all week long, it felt great to not be forced to think.  Time went by quickly (and yes, I sat outside and read).

I hope that my selfish weekend has given you some ideas of something to do, even for an hour, that is only for you and makes you happy.  Log off your computer, step away from the smartphone and just think about yourself!

What are you going to be selfish about this weekend?

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Where’s all the Foursquare Love?

Dec 28 2011 Published by under Uncategorized 

by Jennifer S.

Location-based social media was the next big thing in 2010.  Everyone was talking about the best ways to use it and we saw the same examples over and over.  Since then, the hype has died down and I rarely see a post on Foursquare come across my RSS feed.  It seems like, even though everyone is talking about mobile sites and apps, sites like Foursquare have fallen off our radar.

I jumped on the Foursquare bandwagon in early November 2010, but I am amazed at what it means for nonprofit organizations (along with slightly addicted to checking-in).  The hype may have died down but Foursquare should still be in your mind when you think about social media.

Why should nonprofits bother
with Foursquare?

Like with every other social media site, people are talking about your organization even if you are not there.  And with Foursquare, they are talking while they are close by.  Just by checking in, they tell you that they know about your organization.  Your next step should to be go out there and find out more about them.

Want to find out what others are sharing about your organization?  Check out the tips people have left.  Chances are these are some of your biggest supporters and they want others to know why they love you!  Would you spend time typing out a tip if you didn’t think anyone would benefit from knowing about it?

What about organizations without a lot of traffic?

Now, you’re probably thinking “this is fine for organizations that get a lot of visitors, but we are do work abroad/have multiple offices/spend a lot of time outside of the building.”  Guess what, you should still be thinking about using Foursquare to help build awareness.

During my internship at Children’s HeartLink, I used Foursquare to promote their Heart to Heart Campaign.  They are a small nonprofit based in Minnesota that works in medically underserved countries, there are not a lot of people visiting their office.  However, their Heart to Heart Campaign was held in 20 grocery stores across the Twin Cities.  I created a Children’s HeartLink Foursquare account and started posting tips at stores holding the Heart to Heart Campaign.

While there wasn’t a lot of people clicking on the “I did this tip” button, it was a simple way to let people know your organization is there and a profile gives them an easy way to find out more.  Think about creating a profile for your organization to leave tips and make lists about the places that support the work you do.

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To learn more from and connect with Jennifer, follow her on Twitter – @JenniferLSpies
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Have you even thought about bringing Foursquare into the social media mix?
I’d love to hear your thoughts about it in the comments.

4 responses so far