Headspace for Writers

 

Headspace for Writers

We need mental health care!

Don’t worry. I won’t rant. The pandemic has taught us many good and bad things about the world, our work, our society. I have many opinions, but at the moment, the lack of mental health support is at the forefront of my mind.

For most, it’s been a year of lockdown, sickness, quarantine, online life, worries, money issues, and more. At my house, I did a great deal of hunkering down, focusing on my goals, and editing while still being supermom with online schooling. Lockdown wasn’t so bad for me writing-wise. But I think I’m the exception here. Many writers felt blocked, stuck, unable to plot or edit. Many helpful support structures collapsed. RWA imploded and coffee shop/diner write-ins were canceled. Writers were left bereft in many cases. And the mental health care system could not support or didn’t have the structure to assist us to get through a year of social isolation, lockdown, and pandemic thinking.

Headspace is just one tiny way writers can heal through this. The program has so many meditations, physical exercises, and soothing vids and audios. Authors can tap into those resources and find their place again. No, it won’t replace my Sunday write-ins at Denny’s, but it will help me deal with the stress and pain of not writing or reading, just editing every day all day.

I would urge any writer, any creative type to test out this app. Just the SOS sections alone in Meditation and Sleep can be life changers. Give yourself the gift of a calmer outlook. We’re through most of the fire hoops, but not out of the circus tent yet. Reincorporating into regular jobs, social activities, and school will continue to be stressful. Take care of yourself and your creativity. If Headspace is not your cup of tea, consider another meditation, yoga, sleep apps. If the cost is preventative, look for alternative funding sources. Some companies are buying subscriptions for their workers. I’ve been getting alternative access to Headspace through my library job and the state of New York. See if you can get some time with the app through your state or job.

I don’t have a list of cute, productive activities for this app. It’s not that kind of program. The only thing I could think of was to create a character who used pieces of this app as a teacher or to calm their own life.

Anyway, I encourage you to do the free trial and perhaps a month subscription to see if it works. After that, you might explore other apps, YouTube videos, and the like to find the music, movement, and meditation to help you create your craft.

 

 

How to Use Headspace

 

There isn’t much “how-to” for this app. It’s mostly click and watch the vids or listen to music or voice recording. Explore it and find out what works for you. Nothing too complicated and very user-friendly.

Create an account for the program by logging in with Facebook, Spotify, your Apple Id, or simply an email address. Spotify is an unusual app to use for login. Perhaps Headspace will use your music lists for meditation. Since I don’t have Spotify, perhaps someone can comment on how it works. As mentioned before, Headspace has a free trial, but users must sign up for either a yearly membership or a monthly one before getting the free trial.

Next, the app asks what you would like to work on—stress, sleep, trying something new, staying focused, or anxiety. As you use the app, you can add to the list of things for focus. It also asks for you to make an intention. It’s an open-ended response where you can put in anything.

The main screen of Headspace has at the top—a person icon at the top and a search option. At the bottom of the screen, there are five icons with labels—Today, Meditate, Sleep, Move, and Focus. No matter what you are working on, these other options are available.

Today: This shows a daily article, video, or mediation in the middle screen. Scroll down to see programs in progress, favorites and recent items, and featured collections. Click on any of these to participate. If you are new, you may have the Basics tutorial listed here. These are 3-5 minute guided meditations to get you used to the practice and the program. I highly recommend going through at least the first Basic course of ten sessions.

Meditation: Click on this icon for featured and daily meditations. Again, the Basic course is here. This section features a new meditation every day. You can opt for up to 20 minutes for some. Other features include courses of meditation and single sessions. There is a huge selection to choose from, starting with Acceptance through Grief down to Waking up. The SOS features six meditations to deal with: feeling overwhelmed, being burned out, panicking, losing your temper, being flustered, and being in pain. These are short guides to deal with tough issues. There are timers for guided, semi-guided, and unguided meditations. Also, a variety of videos can be found under Techniques and Support to assist you with your mediation. Lastly, there’s a group meditation invite at the bottom of the list.

Sleep: Click the small crescent moon to find the sleep meditations. These are longer and are to assist you in falling asleep. The main screen features a long sleepcast. Hit the play button to enjoy. Below that are recent and other featured sleepcasts. Scroll down for the Explore Sleep section. Here there are more categories of meditations, sleepcasts, and help, including wind-downs, nighttime SOS exorcises, sleep music, soundscapes (vids with music), and sleep radio (8 hours of music).

Move: Click the triangle icon to find the workout features. Yes, the app is for your mind and body! Again, a featured workout is front and center. Scroll down for other workouts including featured and recent, mindful cardio, feel-good yoga, quick workouts, move minis (when you have no time), “Get moving with Kim” which is touted for beginners, “Get moving with Leon” also good for beginners, rest day meditations, and performance mindset.

Focus: Click the triple circle to find the Focus section. This section has a variety of activities to help you concentrate. There are meditations, music, exercise, immersive experiences (vids), life coaching from Kevin Hart, and soundscapes.

Phew, so much to do with only a 14-day trial. But honestly, check out all the features listed above to discover if this app works for you.

Here are a few more tidbits.

The person icon at the top takes you into your account. Here you can add Buddies (others using the app) by sharing a link on social media. You can also check out your stats—how many days in a row you’ve used the app and how long you’ve meditated, how many sessions you’ve completed, and the average duration. There is also Journey. This section has you check in once a month to see how you’re doing with stress, anxiety, and mindfulness. It charts your stress level. It also has ideas to consider based on your experience and stress level. Lastly, it has your timeline. See what meditations you’ve already tried and when you used them. It’s great for creating a routine or circling back to one you loved.

Click, listen, enjoy.

Ideas for Using OneNote

 

So, funny story. My house has been chaotic lately, and my focus has been nil. I completely forgot to write and post the third installment of OneNote. But thankfully, I choose a meditation app for the next one. (See my previous post on Headspace.) Thanks to the meditation I’ve been doing on Headspace all week, I remembered that I forgot! LOL Anyway, I hope you won’t mind a bit of out of order on this week’s post. Here are some ideas for OneNote for writers.

With OneNote’s ability to function as a filing system, it’s perfect for organizing data, writing, reference material in one spot. It’s a virtual filing cabinet with as many drawers and folders as you need. And the cloud function lets users grab their data from anywhere.

Book Bible. My first intro to OneNote was a series bible created by my friend, Kari Cole. She used the program to keep track of details about her characters and settings. She created sections for research, photographs, family trees. Each book had its own notebook with pages of details. All the details about her Mated by Fate series were in one place, ready as a handy reference as she added to the series. A digital diary for your books that is accessible anywhere is a great way to manage your stories!

Social Media Tracker. I’ve recently started working with some other authors on a Facebook group for romance readers. We have a variety of activities there. Each day has a theme, and there are takeovers and events. Another perfect place for OneNote. With one notebook, I can put together all the memes, pictures, and posts for the page in one place. I set up folders with dates for takeovers and events. I have a different set of folders (color-coded) with pictures, memes, and posts. I transfer these items to the calendar folder or the event folder as needed. It solves two huge problems for me. 

1. I know what I’m going to post ahead of time and don’t need to scramble to grab the right pic or wording. 
2. I know what things I’ve already posted. I don’t double dip with a cute kitten photo! OneNote can keep hundreds of items in one spot and organized.

Writing. When I did my first post about OneNote, one Twitter follower reached out to me and told me he drafted his entire novel in the app! Because the app allows text, it would be so easy to write in OneNote. It can work like Scrivener with the notebook as the binder and the folders as sections. Chapters and scenes could easily be reorganized with the drag of a folder or page. It doesn’t have all the fancy editing tools inside the app. Since it’s an Office product, you get some bells and whistles. Plus, it’s compatible with Word for easy extraction.

Photo albums. This might not sound like a writery suggestion, but OneNote could work perfectly as a photo album. Many people are visual with their novels. Some writers use Pinterest to give a visual aid for their stories, whether planning, plotting, or looking for covers. A picture board can make a novel come to life. If you are already using OneNote, photos can be added like an outline for your story. Or it could be a file of possible covers for a series. Unlike Pinterest, the pictures are just pictures and not links to other websites/pages. That can work for good or ill. But OneNote will clip web addresses for you, so you can revisit the original photo as needed. Also, the album is not shared with the world. (Yes, Pinterest boards can be private, but we’ll talk about Pinterest another day.)

These ideas just scratch the surface of things you can accomplish with OneNote. You can plan any project, books, series, social media, marketing, collaborations with other writers with OneNote. Dream it, and you can do it.