Snippet: Accidental Digital Detox ☇

Shawn Blanc on The Sweet Setup:

It was October. My wife and I had booked a cabin for a week. When we arrived, I discovered there was no wifi or cell service. We couldn’t make or receive any phone calls or texts, let alone check email, post to Twitter, etc.

It sounded awesome at first. During this time I was working as a marketing and creative director, and to say that my job was stressful was an understatement. I was putting in about 70-80 hours per week and was constantly responding to urgent issues and request.

This was the first time in years that I was fully cut off from my “inbox”.

My heart welcomed it.

But my mind and habits fought back; it was not easy to be disconnected.

And for the first few days I felt anxious and jittery.

This whole post spoke to me, as I took a few days off last week, drove up to Minneapolis, and was able to put work out of mind as much as I could. During the drive up, my phone wasn’t connected to the car (had a SiriusXM trial and wanted to maximize that). I was spending most of the time doing stuff, rather than socially loafing on Twitter or Instagram (I spent a few time at the end of each day to share a few pictures). My iPhone was used for finding places, taking pictures, and paying for things, but I was choosing moments to use my phone. My work email is no longer in the Mail app, but I did catch myself peeking at it on Friday, only to discover a situation I couldn’t handle until Monday anyway. There was a bit of frustration, but I made a conscious decision that I needed to be enjoying the time off.