(An attempted) Tech Dry Half Term…..

I love technology. It’s why I worked in product development in telecoms for so many years. I distinctly remember a presentation by the Chief Marketing Office of Orange back in the day, when he said that in the future the mobile phone would be as essential as a credit card. While some people were looking at him with “yeah right” eyes, I was young enough and naïve enough not to have formed views about what the future looked like already. I was a mobile product manager at the time (late 1990s) and that CMO’s comment excited me and made me realise how far we were from that being true. I was busy trying to work out what would replace WAP to reliably connect to the internet! 

I was excited about this thing called the future and the ease that technology would bring.

I didn’t consider there would be any downside: the addiction, the laziness, the killing of brain cells figuratively speaking.

When you want a proper holiday these days, then, technology can be the make or break (pardon the pun) factor. My immediate idea of a break is to go device free for a week. If I was on a beach holiday, the phone would be in the safe, and the laptop wouldn’t even have made it into my luggage. At home it’s a different story. It sometimes feels like there is no escape. 

Here’s how I realised how trapped by devices:

Movies

My TV isn’t connected to any service (long story), it’s basically a dumb screen used mainly for casting Netflix. I banned that this week, and so we were limited to DVDs and the Wii. I had a surprisingly amount of fun getting extremely good at Mario Cart on the Wii. It still felt a bit like device usage, but at least it wasn’t a screen in my hands, and we laughed a lot. Well, we did until my daughter realised how competent I was becoming. She thought it was a lot funnier when I was losing…

Exercise

I am enrolled in an exercise programme that is delivered either on Facebook or via a website. No getting away from this - I need a device. I could just try to remember some of the routines and do them myself, but if I would do that then I would not need the programme. #accountability.  Am I allowed music given that I need my phone for either Spotify or Sonos? I don’t have a traditional radio or CD player anymore?! Thank goodness my dance classes aren’t on this week!

Reading

Anyone who has ever been to my house or looked at the background of my old desk will confirm I have a book volume problem. The thing is my preferred way to read now is to toggle between kindle and audiobook. I’ve read most of the thin books and now I am left with the intimidatingly thick and foreign language books. I don’t fancy any of those on my week off. Plus my book club reads are both on my phone. To limit the time on my kindle I ordered 2 books from amazon (using a device) and read those 2 paperbacks – it was the equivalent of stopping in WHSmith’s at the airport I told myself….

Answering questions

Every time someone asks me something I don’t know, my next move is, yes you guessed it, my phone – google. I don’t use the speaking apps for search yet, but I look up everything I don’t know from how to unblock a toilet naturally (you wouldn’t believe how much you can do with baking soda and white vinegar!), to showing my daughter an example of a Viking ship. I don’t have books to illustrate these things! This week, I shrugged my shoulders a lot and advised – ‘look it up when you get back to school…’

Shopping

While I could definitely do with taking a break from cheer me up shopping (and the raft of returns it generates), there is no way around online food shopping given that I refuse to set foot in a supermarket. I can’t risk not getting my weekly slot that I have so beautifully adapted to getting, and I need to be able to update the shopping basket for me and the other 2 families it serves.

So, it appears I didn’t really think this through. 

I persisted with trying to go device free, but I had to reassess my reasoning for doing it, so I would gain something from my commitment! I really just wanted to stop feeling like I was “producing” things all the time and to get my daughter out of her online habit developed from lockdown schooling.

What I realised I meant for my taking a break was to stop doing:

• Emails
• Social media scrolling
• Social media posting
• Non-essential shopping online
• Checking to see how many people are watching my items on ebay
• Choosing my device instead of relaxation or focused time with my daughter
• Checking to see if someone cares about me / has replied on whatsapp
• Looking at the news / charts / vaccination progress
• Checking twitter for Journalist contact

I basically don’t want to sit looking at my device for more than a minute. I definitely don’t want to feel like I am opening the door to see if anyone is there. And I don’t want to pick my phone up unless it is to trigger something desirable. On that basis, it’s OK to listen to music, listen to audio. 

I don’t NEED to look up information that can wait, find things to buy, I am really going to give this a fair shot.

All in all I have had a great week off. I did a jigsaw, draw a very competent picture of harry potter (online art class, ooops). Read 2 actual books, finished an audio book, played table football, and cooked a few meals from scratch. Time felt like it was plentiful., I said yes to every request to play, talk, cuddle. And then I spent 2 hours on Sunday preparing myself for device life re-entry today – I was scared to open an unruly mailbox on Monday morning – it’s a good job too as Center Parcs were threatening to cancel my break if I didn’t pay the balance!

Based on my learnings and reflection this week, here’s my advice to you…

How to set yourself up for a disconnected week off

1.    Prioritise

Work out what is important to you before you start or you will feel like you failed and ended the week unrested. Look to the end of a successful week and see what you benefitted from switching off from.  Perhaps reading on your phone doesn’t drain you, it’s just meetings and phone calls. Perhaps it’s OK to post on social media provided you don’t scroll. Whatever is important to you is the thing to stay focused on.

2.    Communicate

Tell all of your clients a week in advance that you are unavailable that week and offer them help in advance if it’s needed. The number of times I have had some sort of speaking commitment, and they send me a big request 3 minutes after I put my out of office on. It makes me anxious. In reality, everything they need is predictable. If they can’t work out what these things are, I can and do in advance, so they feel in control of the event and trust that I am an easy speaker to manage.

If there are timely posts that you need to make on social media either schedule them or hire a virtual assistant to do them for you. Personally, I do not get sucked into all that algorithm fear. If I am absent for a week, so what?! I am visible enough the rest of the time. Perhaps people need a break from seeing me too. And doesn’t absence make the heart grow fonder?!

3.    Resist

Don’t break your own rules. It is so tempting to sneak a peak at these things for fear of missing out. What actually happens is two things:

·       You get annoyed with yourself for not having had the break you so desperately wanted

·       You get mildly upset that actually the world is coping perfectly well without you

Don’t let your ego get in the way of a restful break that will guarantee renewed energy on your return.

If you’re still struggling just lock away your devices and let the batteries run flat. Then you have no choice. We’ve all been here before and seen the pay off!

4.    Plan for fun

Decide what you are going to do. For me that means having options available. Perhaps I will order a new board game or crafting activity ahead of time in future. Personally I don’t like to book too many activities because I don’t like to wear a watch on my week off. I normally let my stomach decide what time it is! 

Order in the right amount of food. Perhaps some treats and a lot of healthy food. There is nothing worse for me than having a holiday where I put on half a stone only to get back feeling overweight and unhealthy. When you feel like this, you don’t truly feel like you’ve had a break. Instead you feel like you have work to do to shift it again. This is a personal bug bear as I have only just shifted my Christmas weight – I have committed that that will never find its way back to me again! It doesn’t seem quite as easy to get rid of as it used to be.

5.    Trust

All emails can wait a week especially if your out of office is entertaining and useful, and of course, you pre-empted what the important people will need in your absence. Teaching people that you have boundaries also teaches them to respect them. So, trust that you are inspiring people by taking a proper break, especially those who work or you or choose to learn from you. Think about that when you circle back to the Resist section!

Let me know in the comments if there are other ways that you enjoy a week off from technology. I will take all the help I can get!

Susie Ramroop – Biography

Since the pandemic began, Susie Ramroop has been helping companies to ensure their employees are replenished during time “away” from the home office. She is an expert in designing personal boundaries and creating a “holiday at home”. Unless this is done, mental health is at risk and so is productivity.

Women in business turn to Susie Ramroop when career and life is not meeting expectations. She expertly stops unhelpful patterns of self-judgement and impostor syndrome, and focuses on what matters - progression AND fulfilment.

Her book “Be The Leader You Want To See” is the blueprint for unlocking the goldmine of talent you already possess, so you take the lead now.

Susie is an exciting speaker who will leave you raring to take action. With heart and humour, Susie brings easy clarity to confidently stepping into the career you were made for. She coaches privately and leads utterly transformational retreats.