Digital Detox – The Return!

On Friday I posted about taking two days off the internet as part of a collaboration between Time To Log Off and Punkt.  The project is all about spending time offline over Christmas and Boxing Day and about being in the moment, entitled The Presence is The Present this was a dry run to see how I would cope with some time offline in exactly one months time!

Starting midnight Thursday I popped my iPhone to one side and set the alarm on my new MP01 phone, which was designed for exactly this process and having no internet connection I knew that if I woke in the night I couldn’t do a quick surf of the internet and you know what…I didn’t wake once! Whether it was subconsciously knowing I couldn’t pop online so I wasn’t worried I was missing something or just the plain and simple fact that I didn’t have the light from messages popping up all the time I am not sure but either way I was glad of a full night sleep!

Friday morning I was being picked up at 11am to head out Christmas shopping so I knew I would be offline most of the day and that didn’t bother me but hubby came in from work at 10am and I had already ploughed through stitching together almost 30 stockings, the kitchen was cleaned, breakfast dishes done, living room hoovered and meal plan prepped for the week ahead!  Stuarts exact words were ‘look how much s*&^ you can get done when you don’t have your phone glued to your hand all the time’

I hate to admit it but the man has a point! haha

Using my phone as a camera meant that I had it turned on and with me while out shopping and I have to admit that I had to turn the ping of notifications off as it was driving me to distraction, while doing this is did have a sneaky check of my emails (348 to be exact in just over 12 hours – damn you black Friday!)  Oops but only a little lapse and I didn’t go on the internet surfing so does that even count as a fail?! (ssshh, anyway moving along…!)

Friday night I stayed at mums and this was an ideal chance for us to catch up on chat and watch a TV without interruption.  I managed to sit through both Gogglebox and I’m A Celebrity, watching all of it without having to rewind to catch the bits I missed while checking the internet.   I headed off to bed with a clear head instead of mulling over what I had just read online or wondering whether I had updated Twitter, Instagram or Facebook etc.

The only thing I really missed was being able to check the bank to see what had come out for the day and to keep track of payments that were due out etc, I hate phoning call centers so always bank online.

Saturday both myself and mum headed out to the shops to grab the ingredients to make our Christmas cakes instead of reading about others making theirs, this was another project that would have normally been pushed to one side until the last minute at which point I would have panicked and bought a shop cake!

Not sure whether it was having a clear head or just a fluke but when we went out to the car I noticed the frost on the windows looked like Christmas trees!  How cute is that and I have never noticed before!

I headed home just after lunch, soaked the fruit in Amaretto ready to sit overnight and be made into our Christmas cake today.  I also finished off the rest of the stockings so they are ready to be parceled and posted first thing Monday morning too!

I really CAN get so much more s*&^ done when I log off!

Thank you Punkt and Time To Log Off for giving me the opportunity to prioritize a few things and realise that not every second of my life has to be run via my phone or online.  Things don’t grind to a halt when I’m not here and to be honest if I’m not posting on social media constantly does it really effect my stats and work that much?!  Probably not! So, in the future I will be taking at least 1 day a week off – offline, off from emails, off from messages and off to be Present with my family!

Try it yourself, you might be surprised!

XOXO

Debbie

This is a collaborative post with Time To Log Off and Punkt.