Digital Rehab: How to Take Your Unplugging Further For the Rest of the Year
I recently published a piece titled “Digital Detox: Do You Take the Time to Unplug?”, and with Q4 in full swing it’s the perfect time to revisit this topic.
During this time of year you’re supposed to step away from work, and reconnect with both your loved ones and your deeper sense of meaning related to the work you do… And yet, right now it’s so easy to get caught in the rush to complete your remaining 2014 commitments, all while dealing with a mountain of everyone else’s last-minute requests.
In sum: You need to unplug more than ever, but doing so is harder than ever.
The Solution: Lean Into the Challenge
While it’s natural to think: “If there’s less time to unplug, I’ll just unplug for shorter periods of time,” I suggest the opposite approach. Make an even greater commitment to routinely disconnect from your work and your devices.
In the original post, I prescribed taking an hour unplugged from all devices every day. A helpful first step, but I personally go further and put away the phone for the entire evening. And when I say I “put the phone away”— I mean it. Sure, I could just put my phone on silent and keep it close… but you know how that goes. The phone may not be ringing, but if it’s physically close by then the temptation to pick it up and “just read a few emails” is just too great to overcome.
So, no matter what happened with work that day, when the evening comes—my phone goes away.
What Unplugging Habit Will You Adopt?
One of my team members doesn’t allow devices at her family dinner table. Another team member puts away all screens every Saturday. Another team member read the first piece and stopped streaming Netflix at night, opting to read instead.
Today, I offer this challenge— choose one habit that will force you to unplug deeper and longer than you’re currently accustomed to. Commit to sticking with just this one habit for the rest of 2014. Feel free to choose one of the above unplugging habits, or find one of your own. Whatever you do, just make sure your habit really challenges yourself and pushes you outside of your current comfort zone.
It will provoke anxiety at first. Especially right in the middle of Q4, perhaps the most difficult time of the corporate calendar to disconnect from. But to rephrase an old saying—If you feel you don’t have thirty minutes a day to unplug; that means you need three hours.
