Founder's story
Anastasia Dedyukhina - coach, start-up mentor and founder of Consciously Digital
Hiya! My name is Anastasia Dedyukhina, and I founded Consciously Digital in 2015 — ironically, after spending more than 10 years in senior digital marketing positions around the globe, both in large internet corporations and small start-ups, and convincing millions of people to use technology more often.
Typically for people working in tech, I used to be connected 24/7. In my last corporate position, serving as a Client Director for the world's top-3 internet company, I slept with my phone in my hand even if I switched it off at night. At one point, I started feeling the phone vibrating in my pocket while having no pockets. This is when I realized I needed to change my lifestyle if I wanted to remain sane.
After long considerations and some inspiration from friends, I decided to give up my smartphone altogether. It took me about 5 months, and I now have a very basic phone that can only call and send text messages. This is the single best thing I've done for myself in years. It helped me free up space in my head and focus on what really matters. Since that time, I've done more to grow my business than I had done in all the previous years.
I started telling people my story, and this is how Consciously Digital was born. I wrote a book, appeared in BBC, The Guardian etc, blog for Huffington Post about digital well-being and have spoken and taught all around the world about the impact of tech on our health, well-being and productivity. Who would have guessed.
Let me be very clear about it: I am not anti-tech (in fact, I run my business from my laptop), and I don't think everyone needs to give up their phone. But I also don't think that it's a good idea to spend 16 hours a day being connected - because if you are there, you are not here. So it's all about finding the balance, and that's what we try to do at Consciously Digital.
You can follow me on Twitter @ConsciDigital (yep, I schedule my tweets ;)) or get in touch using the contact form (I read all submissions and normally get back to you within a few hours).
Typically for people working in tech, I used to be connected 24/7. In my last corporate position, serving as a Client Director for the world's top-3 internet company, I slept with my phone in my hand even if I switched it off at night. At one point, I started feeling the phone vibrating in my pocket while having no pockets. This is when I realized I needed to change my lifestyle if I wanted to remain sane.
After long considerations and some inspiration from friends, I decided to give up my smartphone altogether. It took me about 5 months, and I now have a very basic phone that can only call and send text messages. This is the single best thing I've done for myself in years. It helped me free up space in my head and focus on what really matters. Since that time, I've done more to grow my business than I had done in all the previous years.
I started telling people my story, and this is how Consciously Digital was born. I wrote a book, appeared in BBC, The Guardian etc, blog for Huffington Post about digital well-being and have spoken and taught all around the world about the impact of tech on our health, well-being and productivity. Who would have guessed.
Let me be very clear about it: I am not anti-tech (in fact, I run my business from my laptop), and I don't think everyone needs to give up their phone. But I also don't think that it's a good idea to spend 16 hours a day being connected - because if you are there, you are not here. So it's all about finding the balance, and that's what we try to do at Consciously Digital.
You can follow me on Twitter @ConsciDigital (yep, I schedule my tweets ;)) or get in touch using the contact form (I read all submissions and normally get back to you within a few hours).
