Schedule a Day Away From Blogs, Twitter, and IM
Have you noticed that people drop their blogs, Twitter updates, and similar things when they’re really busy? Crunch time forces us to focus on the most important tasks and let the others lie fallow. But why wait until crunch time?
Make it standard
What if you actually scheduled a day where you’d get away from your blog, Twitter, email, and the like? Make you could have “offline day” every Wednesday.
I know, you’re gasping right now. “What is Andrew saying?!”
Think about it. You could write a blog post ahead of time, and schedule your platform to make it live on your “offline day.” Your readers wouldn’t even know that you’re offline.
As for Twitter, do you really need to update your follows every 15 minutes? You’re not Calacanis, right?
IM and email might be the tough ones for all of us. I’m addicted to email, like I’ll bet many of you are. But what better way to curb that addiction than to prove you can go an entire day without checking it? And you’ll feel important the next day when you have lots of messages waiting for you. 🙂
The benefits
I can imagine several benefits to gain from this plan. Here are just a few:
- Less addiction to the internet. Deprivation helps, right?
- Increased confidence when you can’t be online. You won’t be as scared that something is blowing up when you’re away from email or the power goes out.
- Heightened productivity during your offline day. Fewer distractions = more work.
- More focused attention when you’re back online. Aren’t you better able to focus on work after a vacation? Think of this as your internet vacation.
What do you think?
I’m done spouting my thougths. What are yours?
Would you benefit from a weekly “offline day”? Do you already do something similar? Let’s fill up the comments!
[tags]productivity, offline[/tags]
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4 Responses to “Schedule a Day Away From Blogs, Twitter, and IM”
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About Andrew Flusche
Lawyer, bicyclist, husband.
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May 17th, 2007
This is an eminently reasonable and sensible piece of advice, Andrew. We do have a tendency to get too tied to our computers. Time away from the darn thing would do us the world of good, I’m sure.
Generally I try to do less at the weekend – less posting, maybe a links post, at a push – and that seems to work well.
May 17th, 2007
I try to avoid going online on weekends. I read, do things with my family, and just relax.
May 17th, 2007
Hi Rory,
You’re definitely right that we spend too much time at our computers. We’re tied to the bloody things.
Thanks for commenting,
Andrew
May 17th, 2007
Elizabeth,
Thanks for stopping by. I like the reading & writing focus of your blog. Nice!
Spending time with family is great for the weekend. It’s much better than hovering over the computer!
Take care,
Andrew