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Analog-ish is a weekly interview podcast for people who are tired of being optimized. Hosted by feminist coach Becky Mollenkamp, who believes slowing down is a radical act, each episode features conversations with thinkers, makers, and everyday radicals who are finding their way back to something slower, more intentional, and more human.
We're not here to tell you to smash your phone or go off the grid. We're here to ask better questions about the role technology plays in your life — and to explore practical low-tech ideas that give you more agency over the answer. From reclaiming rest to building real-life community, from protecting your attention to finding unmonetized joy, these conversations are honest, curious, and refreshingly free of hustle culture.
If you're burned out from being constantly online and hungry for a different way forward, this show is for you.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (00:05)
The tech bros are trying to take away your humanity, but you're not a machine. Let's talk about what it means to live like a human in this high-tech world. This is Analogish, and I'm your host, Becky Mollenkamp.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (00:20)
I'm so excited to talk to my friend Jordan Maney. We've known each other for years now. I think you're amazing. I've had you on other podcasts of mine. I just love having conversations with you. So anytime I can, I want to do that. You are a rest and joy coach, but I will let you tell the people what that means and what you do. So Jordan, tell everyone who you are.
Jordan (00:41)
Hi y'all, I am the radical joy coach. I help people use rest as a space to experiment with things that are joyful for them while they transition through something that might be hard, usually like post burnout, post some big like...
that happened that may have imploded in their life and they want to transition into something different that's kind to them and full of joy and rest. So I really love being here. I'm so grateful to talk to you Becky and we're gonna have a good time.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (01:17)
Of course we are. It's joy. We have to. We're talking about joy. It needs to be joyous. You mentioned about integrating joy into your life and burnout being a reason that people often need that. the reason so many of us are feeling that tension.
Jordan (01:26)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (01:31)
between our
digital and our real life footprints, it's because many of us have gotten to a place of burnout and overwhelm and exhaustion and we're not getting enough rest, we're not finding enough joy. Maybe social media promised us it would bring us joy and it hasn't. I'm wondering for you, you know, I think both of us are old enough to at least remember ⁓ some flavor of life pre-internet. And I'm curious what you've discovered in your work with people and in your research and what you know.
Jordan (01:44)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (01:57)
about how tech has changed our relationship as a species, as humans, to things like rest and joy.
Jordan (02:03)
Yeah.
that's such a good question. So I remember I'm so glad high school was like Facebook. Facebook was getting really popular and I'm so glad. You're fine. I am so grateful.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (02:13)
I'm so much older than you, Jordan. I know I'm fine.
Jordan (02:18)
I'm so grateful that high school I was a nerd and my mom was like, girl you are not getting Facebook. I don't know what that is. And I tried to like sneak and get one my senior year, but it was, you know, was like something that you did. I think social media used to be an event. It used to be something that you would go to or engage in.
a certain time, maybe after school, maybe during school or something. But then it became, it went from like being an event to being like a constant thing that we did. And I think that's where a lot of this tension shows up because it doesn't need to be. And I think a lot of us, particularly a lot of us who are like online business owners, are really coming to terms with
you know, the model of like constantly being on, constantly launching, constantly being engaged, constantly like that constant feeling is just not sustainable. It's not.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (03:15)
Yeah, it's exhausting.
Jordan (03:17)
It's exhausting
and because our feeds in each platform are like tailored to the things we like watch or click on, right? We're still getting exposed to a bunch of stuff we don't want to see. And especially right now with so much like war, conflict, fascism, we're seeing things where it's like
story from the dodo about a cute dog getting adopted or rescued or something and then the next the next thing in our feet is like War and then the next thing in our feet is like someone someone having a bad medical event like it's it the fluctuation I think is just like too much so I would say I think what's most interesting to me at least I was just talking to a former client yesterday is
how we have gone from like shifting social media to this event and to this thing that we really kind of depend on. Like give me, open up Instagram or YouTube and it's like I want to see something funny. I want to see something to change my mood. And I don't think it's, I don't think it's bad to do that as an event, right? But when we become kind of dependent on it, like that becomes our default.
That's when I think we kind of have to look at our relationship to these things a little deeper.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (04:31)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, and I'm old enough. I'm even thinking beyond social media, but that too, to remember a life pre tech almost right. Like I, I was I'm old enough that I remember and we had television and we had radio, but the invention of the Internet and first, I mean, social media came even later in the Internet, the Internet revolution first. You know, was blogs and, you know, and AOL chat rooms and, you know, different spaces that were starting to bring that attention.
Jordan (04:40)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Yeah
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (05:02)
to us and it was before smartphones where not only did like I think that event that you're talking about, you used to be able to go to your computer, you had to dial it up and listen to the before would everything get there, right? It was like it was a thing to go get online and to read a blog or to get into your AOL chat room or whatever it might be. Then those smartphones came along and now you have the internet in your pocket. wherever you can't escape it or you can, but it feels challenging too because it feels like we're always
Jordan (05:09)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (05:30)
Like you talk about being on, also feels like we're always expected to be available, right? And when you feel that way, whether you're a business owner or just a mom, not just a mom, but a mom who has kids with that expectation, because when I was a kid...
Jordan (05:35)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (05:44)
I couldn't get hold of my mom. Like I had to call her workplace on a hard line and that was a no-no, right? Like it was, you better not be calling me unless the house is on fire. Like that was the, what we were told, right? You couldn't get a hold of people unless you walked over to your friend's house and knocked on the door, you know? And now it's sort of like you're expected to always be available, always know what's happening, the latest news, all the things. I mean, what does that do to our nervous systems?
Jordan (05:50)
Mm-hmm.
pretty much.
Sometimes I'll have conversations with my parents and I will have to like check myself or my sister will check me. When I'm doing too much, like how did you not know that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? Cause they're not constantly online.
Right? And this kind of like feeling like we have to constantly be fielding things is wild because I do remember when it was the family computer and you had to like wait for someone to get off the phone so that you could get online and you could like, I don't know, play solitaire or get on Microsoft and Carta or something like to look up random things for a school project. And I think again, just that idea of
We used to be untethered to a lot of things and I think this constant connection makes us feel like we have to be constantly available and I just... I hate to take advice from the Germans but one thing that they do come August is I'm gone for the month. Like if you need me... So...
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (07:03)
Europeans are great about that. Europeans are really good about taking summers.
Jordan (07:07)
So
good about taking those breaks. I wish that was something, particularly in America, we practice. And I feel like that connection to our phones is tethered also to this idea of constant availability. And especially, what does that look like when we need people to constantly be emotionally available, physically available?
It's just too much and it's really not sustainable. I, I definitely think that there's something there around like how do we renegotiate our relationships to our phones, renegotiate our relationships to being online. I really wish there was a way where we could like, I know that they have like the
like a Google Home has like the little nest with the, it's like a tablet basically. But I really wish there was a way to just like dock your phone and like it's at the house and like you get your messages when you come back home or whatever. Or like we go back, right? We need to bring those, we need to bring pagers and answering machines back. Because I feel like.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (08:03)
It's called an answering machine. We used to have those in the 80s.
Jordan (08:12)
There's something kind of special about listening to the voicemails and okay, I'm standing here now so I'm just gonna call everybody or like hit everybody back. But yeah, I just think that's interesting.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (08:23)
Yeah, well, I don't want to. OK, I also want to be careful with this podcast to not move it into just a place of nostalgia because it's easy to look back and say, oh, those were the easier times. And that may be true to some degree. And we can't change the reality at which we live in, right? We live in a very high tech digital world. We're all surrounded by it. mean, you even just mentioned Google Nest. Like how many of us have smart home devices? Our cars have gotten so far as almost every car now has a.
Jordan (08:31)
fair.
Mm-hmm.
care.
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (08:50)
computer screen in it. Like it's everywhere and we're not just going to escape it by talking about how it was easier at another time. So, you know, like, yes, and let's balance that. And I'm the one who brought it up, who's taking us down that way. Because mostly to point out that I do think we have, I don't know that it's made us healthier in that I feel like we are sleeping less. We are more stressed. People are on more medications for stress, right? I don't know that most of us would on the whole would say it has brought us more joy.
Jordan (08:56)
Yeah.
You're fine.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (09:18)
All that
said, we exist inside the system. So before I move into like, how do we exist inside the system? I am curious, are there ways that tech does play into your rest practice or your joy practice? Do you use any tech tools in your rest practice? Like I know I do. I have a dashboard where I do every day check in.
Jordan (09:30)
oooo
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (09:38)
to monitor how much sleep did I get? Was it quality sleep? I check how much water I'm drinking. I track my gratitude. I'm using a technology tool for that. It's once a day, so there's boundaries around it. But it allows me to be able to see data over time and start to notice trends and things that are working. So that's one way that I am incorporating tech in a way that feels really good. So I'm curious if it's part of any of your practices.
Jordan (09:40)
I love this.
Mm-hmm
Yeah.
that's such a good question. I definitely think that I don't think tech is bad. I think our behaviors around tech have not developed as quickly as the tech has. And so, yeah, I mean, like I use my little Google Home speaker to make sure that.
I hear music when I wake up and that like gently helps me wake up or I have like a wind down playlist that plays that like is a cue that like hey We're getting ready to go to sleep like we need to actually go to sleep So those things definitely help and then also using like my notes app when I have things that I like want to update and I don't know This is like a particular point of joy for me Google Photos has this like scanner for older pictures. We have so many like
Thanks
around early 1900 like photos of family like my dad's side of the family that's just so precious to me and I'm always trying to like take as many pictures of them as I can so that's like a little point of joy so it's like there are a lot of ways to use our time timers another one especially if you are neurodivergent that's really helpful to like get tasks and stuff done so I definitely think that I don't think the tech is inherently bad I'm not saying like we all need to go back in the woods
and eat, you know, roots and berries. But I do want people to be able to renegotiate their relationships to this if there are behaviors that are impacting their sleep, impacting their mental outlook on things, keeping them from engaging with their friends and those types of things.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (11:39)
I think a key word you said there is relationship. And earlier when we were talking about that, always needing to be available, if this, you were talking about a relationship between two people that, you know, were in love. It's okay. You just meet yourself while he does it.
Jordan (11:44)
Mm.
WAP!
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (11:51)
If we were talking about two people who were in love and that was their relationship where they had to be constantly available to each other, we would call that codependency and it would be considered unhealthy. And so I think for us to examine our relationship with technology and the balance of on and offline living, what we're asking is exactly what you said of like, how do you find, how do you create a healthy relationship?
You're going to have to engage with technology in your life, but how do you make sure your relationship is healthy? So when you think about your relationship with technology, what do you consider healthy for you? And I'm sure it's different for every person, but like for you, what feels healthy?
Jordan (12:27)
for me, I'm going to use like a teeny teeny little story. I think it was last year around February, March, and my phone, I didn't know that this was a thing. Like your battery can swell.
So like you'll take it off if you put it on the charger and like take it off and immediately like drops to like 10 % or zero Your battery's swollen. You need a new phone.
all that to say I ended up being without a phone for like four days and you would have thought this was a Ken Burns documentary the way that I was like sending missives to people about like I'll be back soon it's not like I really was like it kind of felt like I was I've never been through like a drug withdrawal before but it felt like I was like
akin to that where I was like, my god, like who am I without my phone? I feel naked. I feel like I'm out in the cold or something. But it was also very funny because there's so many emails in my inbox that I was like, how did I miss this? How the hell did I miss this? How did I miss this? So I was like paying attention in other ways, but I also got the best sleep I've ever had in my life.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (13:11)
Yeah.
Jordan (13:29)
Just even though it was four days. I felt like two weeks and I Remember saying to myself when my new phone came through the mail. I was like, ⁓ we've got to change some things because I didn't realize how dependent I was on this of just like the the it felt like tension and anxiety at first without it Eventually it moved into calm
But then as soon as I got it back, I could kind of feel like the, ooh, like the dopamine hit is gonna come back. And so for a while I didn't have any games on my phone. Cause I noticed sometimes I'll just use those when I wanna just decompress, but like maybe I go a little too far with it. But I definitely feel like it's learning. I look at myself seasonally.
like my feelings, my capacity, my output. I look at that like seasonally. I know how I am in winter. I know how I am in spring. It shifts a little bit. And so kind of starting to have these kind of like internal conversations about like, hey, I know it's about to be a busy season. Games on my phone really aren't helpful right now. But if it's a season where I'm doing a lot of like thinking, contemplating, revising, like that type of thing, sometimes I just need a place where my brain can kind of go like,
find these little things in a map or whatever, cool. It really is about, for me, renegotiating my relationship to my phone. I have to give myself the space to actually acknowledge what I'm feeling.
If I'm feeling like I'm really clinging on to this thing and I really need this to escape reality Or I really need to I'm hyper fixating on things that's when I'm like cuz I can feel like that tension and that need It kind of feels like hyper fixation like the tunnel vision a little bit and I'm not really being present and That really feels like being numb
⁓ When I get to that space, that's when I'm like, we gotta change something. We gotta move something around
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (15:17)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I mean, think a lot of us can relate to that feeling of and that is what I mean, my brother was a drug addict. So I say this with, you know, that compassion, too. But I understand that numbing, you know, that's what drugs did for him. Some people do that through, you know, unhealthy and I don't mean in a judgment of like the types of food, but just, you know, ⁓ disordered eating habits. Some people do it through disordered exercise habits, all sorts of things. Right. That can show up in a lot of ways. And certainly
Jordan (15:30)
Mm.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (15:48)
Our relationship with tech can be that sort of numbing agent. And often I think when we're in that place, it can be hard to admit that we're trying to avoid something. So I'm wondering like after that four day experience, maybe you wouldn't recommend everybody do a four day withdrawal right away. But is it something you talk to people about, like maybe putting your phone away for a day and just see what comes up for you? Is that something that can help people start to see this disordered relationship and what might need to change?
Jordan (15:52)
Mm-hmm.
you
think so even if it's just kind of like hey Sunday afternoon just do not disturb or like Saturday morning if you're doing like events with your kids or maybe you want to do a walk or something like there is something around kind of like cutting that tether a little bit because I get again like you said we can't go back to 1994 right
but we can choose how we want to move forward with the breakneck speed of so much technology being developed. We can choose like where we want to slow down or where we want to create space for ourselves to not be so on and online. And I think that's what's most fascinating to me right now is this kind of like reminding people like, hey, you have.
permission to be like, hey, I'm going to log off for a little bit. It's yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (17:13)
It can be hard to give ourselves that permission slip though when we
feel like everyone is on and again that like did you see this? How do you not know that? Why aren't you? You didn't answer my text in two minutes, whatever. You can start to feel that pressure build up and so giving yourself that permission can be hard. I think you have some tactics that you use and a couple of them you mentioned but I'm gonna throw out another one and we'll go to some of the others that you mentioned but one I know you're one of many people I know that when I send them an email I'm gonna get a bounce back right away.
Jordan (17:23)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (17:42)
explaining that you take time to answer your email. You're not the only person who does that. So that's fine, right? have, whenever I'll send out an email to a list of people that, you know, about something I'm organizing or something, and immediately I'll get back like seven emails, eight emails. And those are all the people who have their autoresponder set up to say, I take a while to answer emails. And I respect and love that because it's putting in a boundary. It's putting a clear limit.
Jordan (17:47)
Sorry.
Yeah. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (18:05)
So that's one boundary I know you put in place around tech, just some of that expectation setting. Are there other things that you do with tech that are boundary setting either for yourself or for others?
Jordan (18:12)
Yeah.
Okay, so I'm gonna be completely honest here. I don't even know if it's so much boundary setting or so it's like Maybe it is but
I know that what will end up happening and sometimes it's not intentional is I'll just like leave my phone by my desk and go futz around downstairs for four hours and be like, oh crap, I need to go get my phone. And that is probably more so just like, I don't know, object permanence, neglect, ADHD, something is in there with that, right? I wanna be better about that.
But I oftentimes feel like my brain is sometimes kind of like, okay, I gotta go away. I gotta go away for a little bit. This is a lot. The other thing that I would suggest is get back into activities. These do not need to be commitments of more than 20 minutes. I wanna preface with that. But get back into activities that require your hands.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (19:13)
Yes, that's why I took up embroidery this year and I've been talking about that because in the evenings when my husband and sit down to watch TV together, which TV is technology, but for me it feels a little different because it's an entire story. I don't watch shorts. I'm watching a 30 minutes, you know, an hour long or sometimes a movie, two hours of a story that plays out or I have to follow along. But I noticed my husband, I love you if you're listening, Terry, but he'll sit there and he scrolls his phone. But I used to sometimes too. I would have to resist that urge.
Jordan (19:20)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (19:39)
to not be like, this is a slower part of the story, so I'm gonna scroll for a little bit or partial break, I'll scroll because it's like we have to constantly have something stimulating us. So now I will watch an I am brighter. So at least I've removed the scrolling part. I'm still watching the show, but I also feel like it's balanced y'all, but I agree big time. Handcrafts help.
Jordan (19:43)
Mm-hmm
love that. Yeah.
Yeah, it's
Handcrafts help and then I guess like let's call them like monotasks So for instance if I go to swim, I can't take my phone into the pool with me, right? so that kind of ends up being a thing where like I'm going to a like a Water aerobics class and then I'm go swim after and then like I shower after there's like this time where I'm just like Doing this one thing and my brain is focused on this one thing to do or like when you go to the movies, right?
Like, you're not on your phone because like it's dark in there. You don't wanna look at it. You don't wanna be rude to anybody else.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (20:36)
except
I think we've seen some of those people who are rude and sit there on their phone. You're like, come on, you can't. But yes, I agree. Manners should dictate that we turn our phones off during the movie.
Jordan (20:43)
We have seen them. ⁓
I
mean Alamo draft house will have a couple commercials that'd be like don't be the person who has the phone on But there's something about that. We're like I'm focusing It's a sensory experience as well because the lights get dimmed down and like you have this big screen in front of you so like you're focusing on this one thing and I think it's interesting to play with like where can we create more kind of like these like mono tasks where it's like
And now I am watching TV. I'm gonna leave my phone in the kitchen for a little bit. I've heard some really cool things about this show. I wanna watch this. Let's see, give myself like 45 minutes an hour to watch an episode and see how I feel. ⁓
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (21:32)
and I don't have
to live react to it. The world isn't just waiting to hear my live reactions to every second of it.
Jordan (21:38)
Yeah,
like you can kind of like sit with stuff like and, and, focus on like responding maybe in a group chat or maybe like with friends, instead of like reacting. So yeah, I think there's definitely space for kind of creating like these like little mono tasks, where you're focused on one thing and, or doing something
to with your hands. So that can be a lot of needlepoint crafts are helpful for this knitting. Maybe you like to draw or doodle or sketch painting. I have a lot of friends who are like into watercolor and painting right now. Maybe you are using like your tablet or something like in procreate to create something, but like where can you, I just got a book from the library because
Nothing requires your attention like reading a book like nothing and so ⁓ I have to use my hands to turn the pages for stuff So I think it's just if you can find those like little spaces Maybe that's a hobby a craft what have you but like to do something and just like singularly Focus on it. I think that will help kind of give yourself a little bit maybe you can't do a whole weekend or or a whole day or whatever, but
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (22:32)
Right?
Jordan (22:55)
We'll give you like a little bit of a break.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (22:57)
Well, and notice what comes up, the tension that can sometimes arise because I'll be doing my embroidery and I will sometimes feel that feeling of like, I gotta check my phone. I gotta check my phone. And it's like just taking that breath to ask myself, what's driving that? What is it that's giving me that feeling? What happens if I don't? How much longer could I sit with this discomfort of needing of this feeling of needing to do something instead of just immediately giving into that, like, that urge, that feeling that you just can't deny. And I think
Jordan (22:59)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (23:25)
those practices are really helpful. And the other thing I've noticed is like that's scrolling my phone very rarely or ever have I sat on my phone doom scrolling and or joy scrolling if that were a thing that at the end of I'm like, man, that was such a great use of those two hours of my life or I would just really feel great now or that was so much, that brought me joy. mean, that just, it's kind of like that deathbed moment where nobody says I wish I'd scroll my phone more at other times, right?
Jordan (23:32)
Mm-hmm.
You
Mm-hmm.
You
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (23:52)
But doing creative projects with my hands, like, I don't know that they're going to be deathbed moments, but certainly at the end of it, I feel pride. I created this thing. I feel creative. I feel like I expressed something. I got something out. I feel productive in that I did something. Like, it's a very different feeling. So when we talk about joy, I think we have to analyze which, what activities actually bring us joy. And again, we can't escape tech, but can we reduce it so we can bring back moments of real joy?
Jordan (24:00)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (24:19)
because
hot videos might be cute, but I don't know that they're bringing most of us real, like, sustaining joy.
Jordan (24:25)
Mm-hmm. I'll say this a question that I have been asking myself a lot lately and I find very helpful when I'm scrolling and I don't necessarily want to be scrolling but I feel like I can't stop scrolling What is this giving me? What am I getting out of this?
and often I won't really have an answer because I can't really remember the thing five videos ago. You know what mean? And I very rarely I'll have like little folders set up on like Instagram like, well these are great cooking ideas or these are great what? How many times do I actually go back to it?
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (24:57)
and
you're calling me out. never go back to them. save them like, I'm definitely gonna do this recipe and I don't, rarely.
Jordan (25:00)
I never go back to them,
but I have them. I feel for a while, think one of the things probably like mid aughts was, you you go to a concert or a live event or whatever, and you're just like recording the whole time. You're not experiencing it. ⁓ I know it still happens, but it's so funny because like.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (25:18)
I think it still happens.
Jordan (25:23)
How often do you go back and look at that video? It is, there's a night, but there's like a nice balance and maybe that's what this whole conversation is about. Is there's a nice balance between like, if you're at a live event and you really wanted to see this artist or you've never heard this sound before, like recording it and kind of looking at these as tools to document your life.
looking at that as these as tools to like better understand what other people are experiencing in their life, but when you're getting to a place where you feel overwhelmed, tense, you're losing track of time is a big one. We're like, it's been an hour and a half. I spent two hours on Instagram not doing anything. It's it's that question of like, what did I get out of this?
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (26:07)
Yeah.
Jordan (26:08)
You know, and sometimes
yeah, sometimes you just want to like doom scroll. That's fine But when you're starting to notice that it's becoming a pattern that might be when you're like, okay So what are some things I can implement to kind of change this behavior that I don't think?
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (26:21)
Yeah, I I think that when you look up, if you feel worse than you did before you started, that's a really good sign. Because I will get in a flow state with a creative project, something that's really lighting me up. And sometimes that creative project involves technology, know, designing something in Canva that I'm super excited about. And I might look up later and be like, my God, that took an hour, but I felt like five minutes. But I feel pumped. I feel amped. I'm excited. I love what I did. I rarely feel that after watching, you know, TikTok videos for an hour. I don't.
Jordan (26:28)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (26:47)
usually
feel good. It's not a flow state. It's like a like you said, it's like a numb state. And that's a very different experience. You talked about you talk sometimes about social media, office hours, what does that mean to you? And how does that play in all this?
Jordan (26:51)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
I think it came out of... I used to be a wedding planner and the way that people would treat me as if I was a first responder when I'm like your wedding isn't until like in 18 months. Why are you calling me? And I didn't know how to like set expectations when I first started and so the concept of office hours
for me, whether that's for social media, client calls, like whatever, was a way to help me as a recovering people, set expectations with clients, but also just help manage my capacity. Like I don't...
If I'm constantly reacting, I get to the end of the day and I feel like I lost time. I don't really feel centered or tethered and it leads me to feel like really agitated and really exhausted really fast. and so I think it's a concept that helps. It's like a, a mutually beneficial concept that helps if you're somebody who struggles with managing your capacity, maybe you over-promise things.
People pleaser like that type of space it helps you manage your capacity and also helps set expectations for for whether that's people who follow you online or clients or Friends and family like it's a concept. You don't have to call it office hours But it's a concept you can apply to a bunch of different things It helps set those expectations and manage your capacity, but that's where it really came from was because I was like I'm not I hate
being on, I cannot explain to you Becky how much I hate being on the phone. If I don't have like headphones when I'm listening, I don't know if it's like a thing, but like just putting the phone to my ear I'm like ugh I just hate it. and
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (28:42)
Everyone in my life knows
you better text me and not call me.
Jordan (28:45)
for
real like I just I just it was the worst and I would constantly be getting calls from clients about like what about this I just saw this on Pinterest blah blah blah but I wasn't setting those expectations or those boundaries and I didn't know that I could and so once I finally figured out like no like I can tell people like I don't do that or if you want to contact me here's how
That's when things kind of started to shift. it started as a way to manage my capacity, set those expectations, but it really kind of was like a permission slip that I was like,
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (29:16)
Yeah, it's the same as that email responder that you have, right? It's that boundaries and expectation setting. But then there's that we do internally as well. So that's that external with others and around our availability, accessibility with social media or all forms of tech. But then there's the internal about how we set some boundaries for ourselves. And one thing you mentioned before this was the lookup method for scrolling. We were talking about scrolling. What does that mean?
Jordan (29:19)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
It's so simple when okay, so when you're on your phone and you're like Scrolling you're doing you're doing this right? And so your eye is always going down here and you're just like scrolling you're looking for the next thing and that's how they design the apps right like Like so you see like the little top piece of an instagram post and you're like, what's that? So you're always scrolling up just draw your eyes to the top of your phone and bet even better look up
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (29:49)
He's done.
absolutely.
Jordan (30:09)
or over your phone for like five seconds, take your thumb off of your phone, breathe, and then ask yourself, do I want to continue? And maybe this is a great place to ask yourself the question of like...
What am I getting out of this? I spent an hour on this. Don't I want to eat? Don't I want to go outside and be in the sunshine for like two seconds? Like, what did I get out of this? And I, I don't say this because I love content creators. I love content creation. I actually really do love social media. I think it can be such a cool space. Like we met because low key because of the internet.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (30:30)
Yeah.
Exactly, we both are content creators. We're right now creating
content that we're putting out there.
Jordan (30:49)
Exactly, like I don't think that they are bad things. I think that like just our behaviors around these have not had We haven't had the time to develop Healthier behaviors at the same speed as the technology has has been like developed and put out to us
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (31:05)
Well, and I always like to, you know, me, I'm going to bring up systems because the system it's been systematically created in a way that robs us of our attention. It's all by design, purposeful and intentional. If you read anything about the attention economy and that some of the stuff we'll talk about this podcast is it's very much by design. It is all these tools and technology are designed to suck our attention and to keep our attention. They don't want us to do to look up. They don't want to ask. They don't want us to ask, am I getting anything out of this? So.
Jordan (31:14)
care.
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (31:34)
When we feel like, I've developed this problem, yes, but also this problem was done to you, right? Like this was, this is somebody is, there's a puppet master pulling strings, making this happen. So of course you're gonna respond that way without intentionality. And I think so much of what you've talked about here, Jordan, is just intentionality, right? It's bringing intention to every practice, finding that balance, moderation in all things. And am I really being intentional and thoughtful about it? Or am I just?
Jordan (31:39)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (32:02)
sort of habitually showing up and performing in a certain way. So that's, think, all that we're asking. So I want to just finish with you sharing your expertise around rest and joy, related to tech or not, but just what do you want people to leave with as they think about rest and joy? And then also, what's one thing you'd like them to do this week?
Jordan (32:05)
Yeah.
that's such a great question. okay. Rest, the way that I define rest is rest is the energy and tension, attention and time that you return to yourself. It's a act of reclamation. And so.
when you're online, when you're scrolling, like how can you reclaim your energy, attention and time? maybe that looks like, Hey, I want to go sit down and do some embroidery while we watch stranger things. I don't know. maybe that looks like, Hey, let me just spend five minutes outside, just like feeling the sun on my face and like taking a little bit of a break. I, I would
want to leave people with that definition. I would also want to leave people with the permission slip that like you are allowed to return energy, attention and time to yourself. You're allowed to reclaim that for yourself. and you're allowed to discover the ways that that can be joyful. Rest doesn't just have to be this like,
you know boring, uncomfortable thing that you arrive at. It can be fun, can be joyful, can be things that are very generative and uplifting to you. And if I were to ask you to try one thing this weekend, it's really look up. Just try it and see what happens. See what happens for yourself and how you feel. If you're scrolling and you feel like, actually don't really want to be scrolling but I can't stop, just like take a
breath, eyes up over your phone, thumb off of the screen. Do you want to keep going? What am I getting out of this? What would I actually like to be doing right now? That type of thing. And then see where you go from there.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (33:54)
thank you, Jordan, for that message and for sharing. I really appreciate it. And where can people go learn about you?
Jordan (34:00)
⁓ You can find me online linkedin instagram and youtube at the Jordan Maney And then Jordan Maney calm But yeah, just come holler at me come send me a little message and say hi. I always like saying hi back to people so But I'll get there
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (34:15)
She may take a little while to respond, but it doesn't mean she won't.
Exactly. And all of that will be in the show notes or description wherever you're getting this content. So thank you, everyone. Find some peace today.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (34:29)
Thanks for listening to Analogish. This episode is over, but the world is still out there. Go find it.