Shine Offline is the brainchild of old friends and colleagues Anna Kotwinski and Laura Willis. The pair decided to set up the digital wellbeing and management business in 2016 after the realisation that dysfunctional relationships with technology was leading to increased stress, decreased productivity and the erosion of work life balance. They are passionate, professional people committed to helping businesses maximise their people’s potential and use digital technology in an effective and sustainable way.
Laura Willis
A graduate of Social Psychology and Sociology Laura’s background in is PR, Marketing and events. She experienced a period of poor mental health in 2013 as a result of her dysfunctional relationship with her smartphone. Her recovery, which involved her reclaiming control over digital technology, went on to inspire her and Anna to launch the business to support others to thrive in a 24/7 connected world. Laura is now one of the UK’s leading commentators on digital wellbeing and management.
“I am the kind of person who becomes very overwhelmed and so have a minimalist approach to my digital usage using a few apps to help manage my life (maps, calendar, weather, uber, podcasts) but avoiding clutter on my device. I still have a strong pull to my inbox and spend most of my day in ‘offline’ mode so that I can focus my mind. Having two phones – one for work and one for personal – is a game changer for me, as is keeping email off my phone.”
Anna Kotwinski
Shine Offline are passionate about helping people find digital balance and better ways of working and living. As owner-managers of a growing company, with the highs and lows, challenges and rewards that brings, it is not always easy to walk the walk. Prior to Shine Offline Anna worked for 18 years as a PR and Marketing Consultant. Today she has developed a full bag of digital management tricks to keep herself in check!
“I am a big believer that technology used in the right way can be the greatest enabler of digital wellbeing. I use apps to help me meditate, to help me focus, to kick me off Facebook when I’ve had my daily allocation and to shut everything down for allocated times. As much as possible I want to try and be present whether I’m sat in a client meeting or playing a board game with my kids. At 10pm every night all the potentially distracting functions on my phone automatically switch off until 8am so I can enjoy a digital sundown, sleep soundly and wake up the right way. At work I like to schedule my time to avoid distraction as much as possible with allocated time for focused work and on emails. It is important to build in ‘hard edges’ to my working day to protect my work life balance.”