I need a vacation. This vacation did not include getting on a plane or packing up the car. My vacation will be a digital vacation.
What is a digital vacation? Some may say it's unplugging, not checking email or staying off of all social networks. But my digital vacation will includ completely closing the laptop and not opening it. On my phone, I will remove certain apps and turn off every form of notification, including sounds, displays and counters. They only thing I will check for was phone calls, but had left messages saying people should only give me a call if it was an emergency. It basically became a 100 percent shut off of digital communication.
Force Of Habit
The first thing I realized that I have a digital addiction. I keep reaching to check my phone, even though it wasn't in my pocket, wasn't ringing or even vibrating. Every morning, I'd get out of the bedroom and walk over to the computer as if I was going to check for messages. Even standing near where my laptop was, had me glancing over at it. I just had the urge (I'm not comparing the chemical addiction, but am convinced it is some form of addiction).
Regain Focus
It is more to regain the focus and start setting my priorities again. Being focused on the screen shows how unfocused we really are. Focus comes when we don't have distractions. No alerts, tweets, emails or Facebook messages to distract. It become apparent that all these notifications just created a fake sense of urgency. I found the quality of my work increased by remaining focused and disrupting my digital connection completely.
This came into my mind when I went out to eat and saw an entire family sitting looking at their phones and not talking with each other, or even making eye contact with each other. That kind of addiciton I am talking about. Focus also provided me a chance to think about time.
Recapture Time
Time became more present and was able to be managed when I was not distracted. Normally, I always felt like I lost track of time and often found myself saying, "How did it get to be 4pm already? I have so much to do still." During my short digital vacations, I started becoming aware of time and planning to not only get tasks accomplished, but also to have some planned downtime.
The Power Of Sleep
As someone who stays up writing posts, tweeting and Facebooking friends, and never wanting to go to bed with an unread email, I'd often stay up until 2 or 3 a.m. When I disconnected all my digital links, I found myself going to bed around 11:30 or 11 p.m. Of course it helped that I didn't have to get up at 5:30 a.m., so I was getting a solid eight hours of sleep per day. It felt great! I woke up more refreshed than ever, I found myself not getting tired during the day. And more important thing was that I was not worried about facebook messages or emails after getting up. I woke up in a more relaxing way.
Lessons to be Learned
What changes I expect as a result of my digital vacation?and these are the things that provoked me to take a digital vaction.
- I will learn to limit the distractions. Do people really care about where I am and what I am doing?
- For as hyper-connected as I am, when I will become less connected, it will produce more meaningful connections.
- I will use the time I have with focus and purpose and realize I have the time, if I make the time.
- Even if I will leave my phone out of my sight, I will not be worried as if I have lost a treasure. I will not need to carry it around with it glued to my hand. This will help me with time, engagement and focus.
- Sleep is important. I will then make sure to get at least 7 hours of sleep on a regular basis.
- I will set limits and I will set time to check email, Twitter, Facebook, etc. I will also set time to talk to people and just read with no distractions.
- Most importantly, it will help me in responding and will prevent me from reacting.
All I need is a Digital vaction.
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