Technology is great, but there can be too much of a good thing. E-mail results in faster communication, but it also leaves overflowing inboxes, spam attacks and the need for lengthy messages. RSS, Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon and instant messaging programs can also be great, if the 24/7 uninterrupted stream of information doesn’t drive you crazy first.
My suggestion is that for one day each month, have a communications blackout. Unplug your internet and let e-mails pile up for one day. The cost of being unconnected for twenty-four hours is small compared to the quiet it can bring to an already noisy life. One day a week would be even better, but the Firefox withdrawal symptoms might kill you first.
Why Unplug?
You probably like being connected. You feel the Amish and Luddites don’t know what they’re missing. If you enjoy feeling plugged in, why go to all the effort to cut the cords for just one day?
I think there are a number of benefits for going offline, but the biggest one is to get perspective. If your Crackberry is sewn to your hip, you might not regularly experience what it’s like to be without interruptions for an entire day. Unless you experience the benefits of an occasional unplug, you won’t know the costs that continuous contact has.
Here are some benefits I’ve found to doing a regular communications blackout:
- Freed Mental Processing Power – If you’re one of those people that answer e-mails and phone calls as soon as you get them (no matter what you’re doing) the first big boost you’ll probably notice is increased room to think. Tim Ferriss in the 4-Hour Workweek points to a study that showed participants mental ability was slowed more from a Blackberry than marijuana use.
- Extra Time in the Day – If you’re constantly connected, you probably don’t notice the slow drip, drip, drip of time wasted each day. When I started batching my routine web usage to once per day I saved over an hour of time even though I answered the exact same volume of e-mails.
- Peaceful Solitude - Can you read a book when dozens of people around you are deep in a conversation? Why do you think you can focus on your physical surroundings when dozens of messages are pouncing at you throughout the day. Unplugging can give a dose of mental relaxation that’s easy to miss in a digital life.
How to Set up a Communications Blackout Day
Going offline for one day isn’t difficult, but if you’re worried the lack of contact could hurt you, here are some of my suggestions for setting up and following through with your day in the real world:
- Unplug Your Cables. Disconnect your television cable and internet modem so you won’t feel the temptation to fill a few minutes of boredom with random noise. Keeping your computer unplugged is the next step, but staying disconnected is still a good start.
- Stop Carrying the Cell Phone. Being completely disconnected and turning off the phone services too might be the next level. But if you can’t take such a drastic step, at least place your cell phone in one location. By effectively converting your cell to a landline, you remove the need to constantly answer texts and calls if you’re busy.
- Plan a Hike. Do something outside or with nature for the day. If you’re planning on taking a temporary step backwards in technology, you might as well go for the full experience. Find some outside adventure you’ve always wanted to take on but haven’t had the time to try yet.
- Talk to Real People. Meet face-to-face. Have actual conversations instead of broken messages of text without proper punctuation.
- Empty Your Inbox First. Before you go offline, empty all your inboxes. This way the longest a message has to stew is only twenty-four hours.
- Read Books. You know, the ones made out of paper? I love getting my daily dose of bloggage from the world wide web, but there’s benefits to using more basic technology. Go to your public library to save the costs of a bookstore.
- Spend Time Thinking. Do you not have enough time to think? Carve out a bit of your day to write down your thoughts and go through those deeper issues that get missed when multitasking.
- Turn Off the Television. While television doesn’t give you instant access to your friends and coworkers, it belongs in the same category of other networking tools. Television takes the constant networking idea one step further, except instead of communicating to your friends, television connects you with celebrities, strangers and imaginary people who can’t even respond back to you.
- Do Real Work. Spend a few hours making headway on those big projects that get tossed aside normally. I unplugged for over a week last month and doing so helped me finish writing my book.
- Entertain Yourself. The constant stream of information can weaken your ability to entertain yourself. I’m sure you can remember building forts and playing make-believe as a kid. While I don’t suggest you start stacking up the couch cushions into a castle, being unconnected can help you recapture the art of entertaining yourself.
Tech is Good
I’d like to finish by saying that technology and interconnectedness is a good thing. There are side-effects that you should recognize and occasional unplugging is smart. But as a whole technology can enrich life, provided you maintain the sanity to use it.
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Why stop at just one day a week? How many of these communications tool honestly bring anything positive in your life? Why bother with RSS, when you can simply bookmark 4 or 5 of your favorite sites and skip the rest? Why bother with MSN, Facebook etc when your real friends are but a phonecall away? I personally can’t see how being “connected” all the time brings any extra value to your life. Moderation is key. Moderate your technology and interconnectedness in the first place and the benefits are much bigger than what having a single day off can provide.
James, Organize IT
Scott:
My wife and I have been taking tech free Sundays for several years. It is a great relief not having the pressure of being connected . . . more time for family, and life. And our businesses have not suffered.
When we tell people about it they are usually at first put off, then I think jealous.
Thanks for the confirmation . . .
Thank you for this refreshing post. Its amazing that in so little time, we’ve forgotten what life used to be like before technologies like cell phones. The one thing that I have begun to do is that when I’m “in transit” like when I’m in my car, or at the grocery store, a few years ago I would have been “unreachable.” I don’t answer my phone at these times because I think especially on long solo drives, we need time to filter out the thoughts in our own heads. People forget that when traveling, people used to be out of touch. I still check my messages for emergencies when I return home, but beyond that, I’m content with my unplugging.
Great post… thanks for remembering that we are still human and there are ways to live without such things. A great idea for anyone.
Unplugged Experiment Part 1
I recently read Save Your Sanity: Have a Communications Blackout Day on lifehack.org which reminded me of my own Unplugged Accidental Experiment post a week ago.
Unplugging is a wonderful practice. Last week after I arrived home from work (which literally 90%+ of my time on a computer) I decided I was going to unplug until my wife got home several hours later.
I shut down the computer, turned off all the lights and opened the blinds, placed my phone on silent, took all gadgets out of my pockets, unplugged any nearby electronics, and sat in a comfy chair.
One of the most relaxing couple hours I have had in a long time.
As someone who hasn’t owned a TV for nearly 1 1/2 years, I fully agree with the turn off the TV statements. Part of my reason for getting rid of the TV was the overload of useless information. I don’t need to know stock prices of companies I don’t care to learn about. I don’t care who is pregnant, dating who, divorcing who, or the hot new shows this season. It doesn’t matter to me who is kicked off Survivor or makes it to the next round of American Idol. Further, I don’t need to know about the blood-soaked news headlines, new terrorist threats, or Iraq War body counts.
The TV is a major energy drag, both on electricity resources and human energy, with little more benefit to people’s lives than having something to talk about at work the next day.
More information, coming in faster, and having no action on it often is causes more stress. If television and other escapes were so relaxing, unplugging wouldn’t be nearly as beneficial as it is.
It is refreshing to take a break from technology and being constantly connected, but when I reconnect I always feel so far behind…so much news to catch up on, so many e-mails to reply to, voicemails to listen to, etc. This results in following a low-stress period with a higher-than-usual stress period, and often leads me to not take as many breaks from being connected.
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thanks for confirming what i know i need to do.
:)