Disconnect from Technology and Get More Done!

Multi-tasking is over-rated! A recent study found that the average smartphone user checks their device about six times an hour. So what’s all that incoming information doing to us? It’s creating a world of people who are stressed out, exhausted and perpetually teetering on the brink of a cold or worse, because their immune systems are similarly fried.

It may be time to try a digital detox — learn to cut the cord and take your life back from tech.  By doing so, you’ll be able to recharge your body and mind, re-connect with your creative side, improve your mood, boost concentration and make room for new intellectual connections you’d probably not have made had you been glued to a screen.  Not convinced you may be a bit addicted? Put it this way: if you start your day by checking your email before you’ve even gotten out of bed, or worse, while you’re on the toilet, it’s time for a digital detox. Here’s how to start your dial-down:

1. Do Less Every Morning

Wake, meditate, shower, dress, have breakfast with the family, go through your morning routine – all without blaring TVs, radios, or flickering phones and computers competing for attention. To start, try doing this one day a week – call it Mellow Mondays – and add more days incrementally as the family gets used to the new routine. 

2. Send Your Brain on an All-expense Paid Vacation

There are numerous ways to disconnect from technology, some short-form and others, a bit more hard-core, but all have one thing in common: silence. Commit to a daily meditation practice even if it’s just for 5 minutes, as soon as you get up. If you can take another mediation break in the middle of the day, even better. The more opportunity you give your brain to calm down and refresh itself, the more productive and creative it will be – you just need to give it a little free time! 

3. When You’re Off Duty, Mean It!

Make weekends and vacations true relaxation times, not just lighter versions of your weekday workdays. Use the-out-of-office notification setting on your office email and resist the urge to respond to emails until just a few hours before your scheduled return. If not checking your email makes you nervous or puts your livelihood at risk, politely inform colleagues that you’ll be checking emails at specific times, for example 10 am, 3 pm and 7 pm, and will be able to respond only to the most truly time sensitive ones. If you value your off-hours, so will they.

4. Make Yourself Digitally Incompatible

The simplest way to disconnect? Add activities to your life that are all but impossible to do with a digital device in hand. Three great activities are meditation, yoga and hiking. The beauty of all of these three calming activities is that they are wonderfully head-clearing, fantastic for your body and utterly incompatible with electronic devices.

5. Be Where You Are

When you are texting, emailing, Facebooking etc., in the presence of others, you are not being where you are; you’re only partially engaged with the real world. Your tapping away in the presence of others announces that your mind is elsewhere, and suggests that they’re not as interesting as whatever is happening in your virtual world. If it seems family and friends seem annoyed with your lack of attention, the screen between you and them might be contributing to the problem. Learn to put the smartphone down and start giving people your full attention, you know, just like we used to do in the old days.

6. Go On a Digital Diet

Control some of the mayhem by curbing your enthusiasm for social media. Go on a Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/Snapchat diet. Cut down on the number of times a day you check in or are alerted to your friend’s status updates. Update your page every other day or so, instead of multiple times in a day. Are you brave enough to take it a few steps further? Then go rogue and shut down your Facebook account. You might be surprised by how much more time you’ll have to do the stuff you never used to have time for!