I know this topic is tired. I still think it’s important.
3 years ago (or thereabouts) I did not have a smartphone. Now I — and most others — are completely dependent on those little glowing rectangles. It makes me sad that often I will be in the elevator with 3 people and we are all staring . . . down. I absolutely love the convenience of having every online resource at my fingertips, but hate being reachable at all times, even though I feel like I need to be as a parent and doctor.
And — like Ana wrote about in her recent post — I absolutely hate that I use it to fritter away spare bits of time. She wrote a list in that post of other ways to use precious bits of downtime. I am going to do the same thing (maybe . . . on paper?) but I also wanted to brainstorm sane ways to purposefully unplug.
Ideas:
1) Social media only at specific times of the day (8pm – 9 pm?)
2) Weekly digital “sabbath” — I have tried this before and really liked it, but it is hard to stick to.
3) Docking the phone at work and at home, or having a designated place to put it.
4) Going back to using my actual camera at home so that I do not whip out my phone every time A&C do something that I feel must be captured immediately.
I did rearrange my home screen a while back to make email checking more difficult, and I deleted the Facebook app (but then joined instagram . . . oops. Although for some reason I find it less offensive). I also have pared down my feedly list significantly.
Has anyone successfully implemented an unplugging strategy? Do you have other ideas? Please share!
PS: Potty training is being attempted this week. It’s rather exciting but I have a feeling this will not be the final attempt (A is up for the challenge but I am not sure she is physiologically ‘getting it’ yet.)
PPS: One of my coworkers needed to trade and I’m on call again this weekend! This is the 4th time in the past 7 weekends — arghhg. Frustrating, but thinking about how few calls I’ll have over the fall will get me through 🙂
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