Hi, my name is Fab (I know, what a way to kick off hey), and no, it’s not short for fabulous, you cheeky little thing.

First and foremost, some Medium introductions. You may have read my pieces in the following columns:

• News in Brief — Social Media & Marekting News Column for Better Marketing
• The Brave Marketer — My Marketing for Writers Column for the Brave Writer
• Productivity Guinea Pigs — My Productivity Column for the Post-Grad Survival Guide

The back story

How many times do you check your email per day? I swear this is no trick question. I came to a point in my work life where I lost count.

According to OptinMonster, some of us check our email as much as 20 times a day. With the rise of mobile use, checking email is super easy, after all.

As my book Reclaim your Time off was about to be released in May, I went into an email frenzy. I stopped following my rule of no-email Fridays (something I swear by). …

I spend a lot of time on social media, but that comes with my job title. As a marketing consultant, who started her career as a social media and community manager, I am really mindful of the people I surround myself with online.

Even more so, as an entrepreneur, I am aware that surrounding myself by inspiring people is a great way to keep inspiration high, especially when life gets in the way.

Dan Murray Serter

Handle: danmurrayserter

Dan is the founder of Heights (I had the pleasure to interview him for Alt Marketing School months back). He is vocal about topics such…

Over the last few months, you might have seen your Instagram blowing up with what is known as photo dumps.

This about it as a carousel of pictures that tend to have not a specific connection or a specific link between one another: casual selfies mixed in with images of food, sunsets, and candid shots to give you an overall “vibe.”

These tend to be usually unfiltered photos, quite raw, and they’re going against the hyper-aesthetic and the heavy curation style of Instagram pictures.

In the last month, there have been over 700,000 uses of the phrase “photo dump” or…

Productivity Guinea Pig

Zoom-free Fridays are an idea originating from Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser’s plan to provide the bank’s staff with a weekly respite from video calls. Her decision spawned a debate about the mental toll of the pandemic workday on office workers.

Would a ‘meeting free’ day be good for us and our mental wellbeing?

I decided to try it for myself. Making space for creativity and real rest means creating the right environment around us, one that is not constantly interrupted by external stimuli.

We’d expect calls and meetings to become a part of our existing working hours. Instead, online appointments…

NEWS IN BRIEF

You heard it here first: Instagram is looking to make its auto caption tools available for regular feed posts in the recent future.

This is a very exciting development, which could show more tools to improve accessibility within the app after releasing captions stories.

In the meantime, Instagram has also launched a new test of a feature that would enable users to post collaborative updates, both in the main feed and in Reels clips.

As explained by Instagram’s VP of product Vishal Shah:

“Collaborating is a huge part of how people connect on Instagram. To make that easier, we’re testing…

I knew running a business would teach me a lot of things about life and myself. But what I certainly wasn’t expecting when I started was that running the business would teach me a lot about finances.

It comes from the misconceptions that I have, especially as a woman when it comes to getting comfortable talking about money, planning my financial future, being comfortable having financial conversations, and so much more.

I have developed a few crucial habits resulting from running my businesses, some you can also implement today to feel confident about your financial wellbeing.

Please remember that all…

Asking for help is never easy. As humans, there is an element of ego and pride that stops us from asking for help when we need it the most.

I’ve always shied away from asking for help because of a combination of ego and fear of rejection. On top of that, when running a business, we compare ourselves to a life represented through the showreel of social media, which can be incredibly misleading.

A couple of events in my journey, including launching a book, and at the very moment, launching my third crowdfunding campaign, have forced me to get comfortable…