The joy of disconnecting
In this article, I’m going to reflect on my experience of being offline for a day every week since the start of the year — what the benefits are and how I prepare for it.
I still remember the first Saturday I stayed offline. Initially, I felt a sense of relief to switch off my phone on a Friday night knowing that in the morning there won’t be an alarm waking me up and my body’s natural rhythm is being acknowledged.
Here are some of the other benefits I experienced.
Feeling less overwhelmed. We go through the day and are bombarded by information. Every time we open our emails, messages, the news, Social Media or when searching for something on the internet. Doing this day in and day out is exhausting and can very easily feel overwhelming. I found that reducing my inputs and stepping away from all of it for just a day helped enormously. Sometimes it can feel more overwhelming to start with as we leave things undone or unanswered but it allows us one very important thing — the space to think about the importance or triviality of the things that overwhelm us and we can think about how we are going to approach them once we are back online.
Being more present. By far the biggest benefit is to be more present. Present to the little things — the things we don’t tend to notice anymore because our phone is a constant companion and it fills any empty space in our lives. Being fully present at mealtimes, present to the people you are with and to the amazing food you get to eat. These are such blissful and meaningful moments that get so easily missed on most days when we are connected.
Discovering the analog world again. Today we are so used to our phones being so much more than that — they are also maps, music players, cameras etc. However, not being connected gives us the opportunity to remember all the things we used to love that don’t involve a phone or laptop. Digging out my old camera reconnected me with my love for photography. I also started drawing again, re-reading my favourite books and I’m looking forward to starting knitting again.
How to disconnect for one day
If you now feel inspired to spend a day offline, there are a few things that will make the transition easier when going offline.
Planning ahead
Once you decide that you would like to be offline for a day (or even just a few hours) and why you want to do it, it’s time to figure out how. Of course, you can just jump into it — switch your phone off and that’s it. But I actually noticed it’s not quite that easy. You don’t want to end up having to switch your phone or computer back on only a few hours into this experiment because you need some information that’s contained in an email. I suggest that you think about the activities and things you want to do during your offline day and what information you can prepare beforehand — perhaps writing them down such as a recipe or an address. Also, if you need to be reachable, perhaps assign someone in your environment who can inform you if there is an emergency.
Looking forward to something
Deciding what to do beforehand or at least having a vague idea is also useful to create excitement about the day. Choose things you hardly ever do or things you’ve done in your childhood. Go outside, explore or simply relax and do nothing.
Making a list for when you are back online
During the day, it’s inevitable that you will feel the urge to look something up, think about something you need to do or would like to do which involves using your phone or computer. On your offline day, take a piece of paper and simply write down all the things that you want to research, the things you want to watch, the online article you want to read or the people you want to reach out to. Use the following day or days to go through your list and decide if you still want to do the things that you wrote down. Chances are that they are not that important anymore and you may only want to do one or two things from that list.
Reflecting on your experience
Finally, I recommend that you journal on this experience. Write down your thoughts, challenges and observations. It’s very revealing to see what is coming up when we try something like this and perhaps something will come up that surprised you, especially if you are reflecting on a day that was supposed to be an offline day but then didn’t happen. Why did you switch on your devices again? Were you looking for something specific or were you bored or needed to feel something that offline time couldn’t provide?
Not ready to switch off your devices?
For anyone who is reading this and thinks this would just not be practical because you have kids and you need to be reachable for them or you are constantly on the go and need a digital map or simply because you want to take photos and don’t have another camera, there is a pretty cool tool out there for you. It’s called Freedom. It blocks any application or website that you select on any or all of your devices, for an hour or even a whole day and you can remain disconnected whilst still being reachable, finding your way around and taking pictures during your nourishing day offline.
When have you last been offline? Was it for a day, a week or even longer? How did it go?
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