After nearly 60 days without using email as part of our 60 day no-email challenge I sent my first email today, and in two months I can tell you that I learned a lot.
When was the last time you didn’t check or send an email in 60 days? How about 30 days? How about 10 days? What about 10 hours? Exactly. It may seem like a huge waste of time and resources to go back to the stone ages and actually talk to people, but I did it for sixty days and I can tell you that disconnecting for a while may actually help you in business.
Disconnecting from most of the web has done a few things for me. It has given me less opportunities to dodge social interactions using the web, it has forced me to reconnect with nature, and it has lessened my dependance on such devices.
Whenever conversation gets quiet or on to a subject I don’t want to talk about I used to dodge it by pulling out my phone and checking my email, but this time away from it all has forced me to actually finish the conversations and my social interactions have improved thanks to that. Learning to converse without distractions is a great skill that can help you when interviewing for jobs, meeting with clients and prospective clients, etc.
Without Netflix and Youtube I had to find a new source of entertainment. The source I chose was the outdoors. I spent much more time outdoors than usual. I went hiking and canoeing in places with no cell service without worry because I had nothing to check. I saw some of the most beautiful sites i’d ever seen because I kept my head up. I saw a moose eating off the bottom of a lake and eagles soaring overhead. It was incredible and I owe it all to this challenge because without it I likely never would have done these activities.
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| I hiked all the way up here |
Finally, after 60 days with nothing but an iPod with music and a camera for capturing nature I no longer feel the urge to pull a device out of my pocket every few seconds. I still love technology like the major nerd I am, but I’m not so tied to it that I’m missing life around me.
Honestly I would do this again any time. Disconnecting brought so much to me, and while it would be rough and nearly impossible to disconnect for more than 8 weeks, anything shorter is well worth it. It may seem hard to disconnect from the world you are so connected with, but give it a try for sixty days and I guarantee you will thank me. For those of you that need to email for work, simply set hours of the day when you won’t touch work, don’t look on weekends, and keep your emailing to work-related items only. Alert your coworkers not to spam you with miscellaneous crap and give it a try. Tell me what you think on disconnecting below.