Be un-social, get offline and take a break

A strange thing happened this holiday. I didn’t check work e-mail for two entire weeks. That’s the first time in close to a decade of working that I lasted that long.

And that word (‘lasted’) shows just how absurd the world has become – that we somehow have to be chained to our e-mail. Connected. Available. All day.

Sure, there are millions of people who don’t feel that way at all, who hardly use e-mail (my dad, for one, doesn’t even know how to use a computer and probably never will). But, knowledge workers and generation Y (or whatever the trend is to label it with) have never known a world without e-mail. A world where we aren’t connected. And the shift to mobile, where we now have the most powerful computers we could never have imagined just a decade ago, in our pockets, has exacerbated the problem. We’re forever pulling down to refresh, obsessed about every notification that flashes onto our home screen or desktop.

And we aren’t even aware of the fatigue and stress this brings. We wake up and check our e-mail immediately. The iPad Mini is the perfect size for bed, right?

We do not need 40 browser tabs open all competing for attention. We’re on the way to a meeting and we check Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram, (Foursquare – does anybody still do that?) and our e-mail.

I’m aiming to get into the habit of dealing with my e-mail at certain times during the day. Your inbox does not need to be open all the time, with dozens or hundreds of items that are there for no purpose at all but to steal your time flooding in. Since we moved our mail to the cloud late last year and I started with a fresh inbox, I’ve been brutal. Most e-mail gets deleted without even being opened because most of the messages I get are broadcast to many. Not one-to-one – those all stay and are dealt with.

And I definitely need to stop checking mail first thing in the morning.

Even though I read and shared this Fast Company piece (What Successful People Do With The First Hour Of Their Work Day) last year sometime, I still haven’t changed the way I do things. The gem, at least as far as e-mail is concerned from Tumblr founder David Karp: “If something urgently needs my attention, someone will call or text me.”

The New York Times’s Nick Bilton had it spot on almost exactly a year ago in a piece titled “Resolved in 2012: To Enjoy the View Without Help From an iPhone”. We’ve picked up these habits of pulling out our phones all the time, broadcasting our lives, obsessively taking photos because we don’t want to forget things.

Hilton Tarrant

“Hence my New Year’s resolution: In 2013, I plan to spend at least 30 minutes a day without my iPhone. Without internet, Twitter, Facebook and my iPad. Spending a half-hour a day without electronics might sound easy for most, but for me, 30 unconnected minutes produces the same anxious feelings of a child left accidentally at the mall.”

When you’re immersed in being connected and online and always available (obsessed?), you notice the people who aren’t. And you wonder what on earth they’re doing… I mean, they’re not on Twitter?! They’re not on WhatsApp all day?! How can he NOT be on Facebook?!

They’re busy living. Talking to people. Doing spontaneous things. Walking the dog. Spending time with friends. Reading. Experiencing life.

Stop checking e-mail first thing in the morning. Stop checking it throughout the day like a maniac. Don’t worry about it when you go home in the evenings. Be as offline as you can be on weekends.

That doesn’t mean you should stop sharing. It means being more selective. More thoughtful and deliberate about what you’re sharing on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram.

This is not the first piece you’ll read about this, nor will it be the last.

It’s all about balance. Get offline and take a break. You’ll be amazed.

*Hilton Tarrant contributes to “Broadband”, a column on Moneyweb every Wednesday covering the ICT sector in South Africa. He’s still reachable on Twitter and e-mail, but perhaps don’t expect an immediate reply.

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