#gotta add some books and other stuff to the shelves then maybe some potted places here and there

[cakepoppresent]

Daisuke Takahashi Private Office WIP

[scatteredenthusiasm-blog]

24-hour Tech Break: Reflections and Realizations from a Screenless Day

For 24-hours this weekend, I joined up with Imaginarium and took a tech break. Starting at 6pm on Friday and going until 6pm on Saturday, I turned my phone off – not “do not disturb” or airplane mode, but just completely off. I closed my computer and iPad as well and zipped them up in my workbag and put them in my closet, out of sight and relatively out of mind. During my time away from screenland, I had a few realizations that I want to share.

Before that, I do want to acknowledge one thing.

I understand that people have actual hardships in life, and that taking a 24-hour tech break is not one of them. And I know a 24-hour tech break sounds like something that would be recognized at the Millennial’s Choice Awards.

“Oh my god, is that the guy that did the 24-hour tech break?” “Wow, I can’t believe it’s him!” “I thought he died at hour 13.” “No, the doctors actually rushed in and were able to resuscitate him after the 24th. That’s why he’s the guest of honor at this year’s MCA’s.”

Anyway, you get the point. But here’s what I learned.

Silence is Golden (for real)

I didn’t realize how much of the day my attention and thoughts were being guided by noise. My typical daily routine consists of nonstop noise. 

When I wake up I put in headphones first thing and listen to a podcast while I make coffee and breakfast, then I take out the headphones to write my morning journal of three pages by hand, then the headphones go back in and I clean up breakfast. Next up I swap out headphones for Spotify to play on my phone while I shower and get ready for the day, then I go headphones again and get my stuff together to head out the door. As I get in my car, I switch from headphones to my car audio, so I’m either listening to music (SiriusXM Fly channel 47, 90′s-00’s hip-hop and r&b, to be precise), or I’m making calls. My workday then consists of either interviewing people, training, staff meetings, or doing in-home sales presentations, which is pretty much me talking 80% of the time, which is just more noise. During a lunch break, or anytime between appointments/meetings, I toss the headphones back in and pick back up on a podcast. Eventually I hop back in the car to head home, so it’s back to music or phone calls. When I get home, the headphones go back in as I cook dinner, and then they come out as I eat dinner while catching up on the previous night’s Late Night with Seth Meyers (and other shows) on my DVR. As that finishes, I’m mindlessly scrolling through social media, just refreshing stuff waiting for the next little dopamine hit that is a new post, story, article, etc. To end the day, I toss the headphones back in while I do dishes, I still have them on as I get ready for bed, and then I pop them out only to fall asleep to Netflix on my iPad that is a foot away from my face, which I then wake up to 30-minutes later to find it still playing, so I close the case and go back to sleep.

Whew. That looks WAY worse typed out. From the moment I get out of bed to when I fall asleep (for the second time), it’s just noise-noise-noise-noise-noise-noise-noise-noise, with zero breaks.

My first realization during the tech break was how vital the silence was. I needed it desperately. The silence revealed to me exactly how much noise I fill my day with.

I like to think of clarity of mind as a mirror that I’m looking into. Every bit of noise throughout the day adds a little fog to it. Podcasts – fog, phone calls – fog, texts – fog, every refresh of social media – fog (and fog and fog and fog and fog). These things aren’t inherently bad on their own, but my relationship (or addiction, really) to them is unhealthy, because I let them fog the mirror all day.

The silence, however, is the only thing that would clear the mirror. Each hour of silence during the tech break was a small wipe across the mirror, until finally the fog was gone, which happened maybe at hour 17. The more fog you put on the mirror, the longer it takes to clear it.

When the mirror finally cleared, I was reminded of who I am and what I want to do with my energies that particular day. My creative juices started to flow, I had three or four short story ideas come up, and I was able to look in the mirror and see what the next right thing to do was. When the mirror is foggy, I don’t have a chance at seeing the next right thing. I’ll get an idea, but then a Facebook notification will completely derail that train of thought. With a clear mirror, I was able to think through a story idea completely uninterrupted, even sketching out a quick outline so I could return to it later.

Silence is vital, and it brings clarity along with it. I don’t mean that you have to treat your tech break like a silent retreat – you can talk to anyone you’d like in person – but when I say silence I really mean just a break in the noise of screenland, whether the screen is making noise or not. The silence recharged my batteries.

Productivity

Without the constant interruptions of noise, I was able to accomplish more tasks in my 24-hour tech break than I had done in the first two months of the year. I always have a running list of things I’d like to get done around my house on a day off, but then stuff comes up and those things get pushed aside, or I’ll start one project and then come back the next weekend and try to finish it, usually leaving it 75% done.

Over the 24-hour tech break, I did laundry (sheets, towels, clothes), reorganized my bedroom, cleaned out my car, deep cleaned my entire house (not just dusting and cleaning the floors, but like the scrubbing the shelves of my fridge kind of deep cleaning), raked leaves, pulled weeds, trimmed all my hedges, bought new succulents for inside, moved everything off my front porch, swept the floor, wiped down the furniture, and then rearranged the layout of the porch, I read 50+ pages of a book, I wrote my three morning journal pages, wrote 50% of this post (by hand, of course), I cooked, and I got rid of (donated) two trash bags full of clothes I haven’t worn since I moved into this house in 2016.

All done in 24-hours, with ~8 of those hours spent sleeping.

I don’t mind a good day or two of cleaning and organizing because I would usually catch up on podcasts or listen to music while I did those things. But without any distractions from noise or screenland, I was able to accomplish each task in about 60% of the time they would normally take because I was solely focused on that particular task.

For example, if I have headphones in while trimming hedges, I’ll come across a song I don’t want to listen to on a playlist, so I’ll get my phone out of my pocket to change songs, but then I’ll see an Instagram notification, and when I open Instagram I’ll see some new stories pop up, then I’ll comment on a friend’s story, which will remind me to text another friend back about something else, and then 10-minutes go by and I’m standing on a ladder with hedge clippers in one hand and my phone in the other, all while my playlist is now 5 songs past the one I wanted to skip in the first place. When finally get back to work on the hedges, another song will come on that I don’t want to listen to, and the cycle starts over.

(Exhale) I told you my relationship to screenland was unhealthy.

Without my phone in my pocket, I was not only able to complete the tasks much quicker, but I was also able to do them better because they had my full attention. Instead of just buying new succulents and putting them in new pots, I cleaned out all of the old pots and mixed in new dirt for the succulents I already had. At the end of the day, I was tired, but it was that good kind of tired, where you’re proud of your work.

I was at my most productive when the mirror wasn’t fogged.

Constant Contact

Last point, so I’ll make it quick.

I was stunned at how many times I would think of something that would make me reach for my phone to text a friend. The smallest thought would pop in my head, and I’d reach for my pocket for a phone that wasn’t even there because my first instinct is, “Oh, I gotta text that person about that.” I do that ALL DAY, which puts me in constant contact with so many different people. The reaction to reach for my phone was Pavlovian like.

The shirt I wore yesterday was one I bought in Encinitas last year when I was visiting my friend Luke, and I thought, “Oh, I need to send him a picture of this shirt.” Later on I was getting my golf clubs out of my car and thought, “Oh, I need to see if my friend Patty wants to walk 9-holes tomorrow because the weather is so nice.” Then I found an old jacket from college that made me think, “Oh, I need to send a picture of this to my friends because it reminds me of this thing we did back in 2009.” This routine happened over and over and over and over.

Again, texting my friends isn’t a bad thing – in fact, it may be a nice pick me up for both of us in the process. But the quick reaction to reach for my phone anytime those thoughts popped in my head scared me. It was like I was desperate to be in constant contact with a bunch of people all day, and that constant contact is going to add more and more fog to the mirror, distracting me from writing, cleaning, reading, or whatever I want to spend my energies on. Plus, each time I open my phone to send one of those texts, I’m more likely to come across something else on that shiny, 5.5” screen that will take me down a different rabbit hole, which will, in the end, make me forget to send the original text.

The break from constant contact was incredibly calming.

If you read one part, let it be this

As the clock approached 6pm, I started to get a little sad. I wasn’t ready for the tech break to be over. I wasn’t ready to return to my old way of doing things. Texts, calls, social media, emails – I knew it would all come flooding back with the press of one button. Or even worse, what if no texts came flooding in? OR, what if only one text came in and it was from the pharmacy saying that my monthly prescription was ready for pickup? That wasn’t the case, but I digress…

I loved my time off of the grid, and quite frankly, I liked no-tech Jeremy a lot better than screenland Jeremy. It reminded me of being a kid, when I could jump from task to task, pursuing whatever interested me at the moment, free of anything buzzing or lighting up in my pocket, and solely focused on what was right in front of me at that exact moment in time. I got out of my own head. The mirror was clear.

A power shift had taken place – one I was dying for and didn’t even know it. For the first time in probably a decade, I owned my phone instead of my phone owning me.

So going forward, I’ll make some adjustments to my routine: I’m going to limit the amount of time headphones are in my ears, I’ll swap out Netflix for a book before I go to sleep (because I know I don’t need to watch all of The Office for the millionth time), I will leave my phone in a different room of my house when I want to get stuff done, and I’ll continue not checking social media before noon, which I’ve been doing for Lent this year.

If you’d like to try a 24-hour tech break, here are my suggestions:

1. Do it over a regular weekend at your house, because it’s easier to analyze your habits when you are in your typical routine. If you do it outside of your routine, then you’ll have other distractions to keep you away from technology in the first place, which won’t reveal your tech instincts enough. It’s best to have as little planned as possible.

2. Get someone else to do it that doesn’t live with you, because it’s a nice little encouragement to know other people out there are doing it as well.

3. Keep a notepad with you and write down your accomplishments every time you complete one. By the end of the day, you’ll be shocked at what all you’ve done.

I know one tech break isn’t a cure all, so I’m planning on doing this once a month for the rest of the year. In the meantime, I’ll be working hard to keep the mirror clear.