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Do You Need A Good Excuse To Do A Digital Detox?

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Do you need a good excuse to switch off?

Sometimes, to regain vital perspective, we need to take a step back from digital platforms.

This weekend is a great time to do a digital detox, especially if it's something you're trying for the first time.

The organisation Reboot is holding a National Day of Unplugging from Friday 6th March to Saturday 7th March. People all round the world (it’s international, really …) will join together in switching off.

All you have to do to take part is join in. It’s free. Knowing so many other people are doing the same will hopefully give you extra motivation.

Often, we can feel like we don’t have enough time; from the moment we wake up until the moment we go to sleep, we’re answering to digital demands.

We get into the habit of answering to our smartphones, laptops and tablets every few minutes. We end up being constantly on call. We say we’re "just checking" for five minutes, and before we know it, hours have gone by – spent on messaging, social media or email.

A digital detox is a great way to combat this. Switching off your smartphone, tablet, laptop and other digital devices for a few hours, a day, or longer, can make a big difference to your stress levels and how you feel.

A fascinating aspect of the National Day of Unplugging is that you get to see the reasons people are switching off. Many people upload a photo, completing the sentence “I unplug to …”.

“I unplug to appreciate”, “I unplug to focus”, “I unplug to make memories”; these are just a few of the things people have written.

Reading and thinking get frequent mentions.

People unplug to “be in the moment”, to “live in the now”. They frequently mention spending time with friends and loved ones. They also mention switching off so they can “connect” or “reconnect”.

In my book, The Distraction Trap, one of the things I look at is what we’ve lost as we become constantly connected. I look at areas including reading, listening, and paying full attention. These are issues affecting so many of us.

So often, digital devices pull us away from the present moment. We read a message, and our thoughts are pulled beyond the room we’re in. We’re suddenly forced to think about someone else’s demand, or a work message suddenly invades non-work time. This can change our mood, take up our time, and occupy our thoughts. Digital devices have a huge impact on how we spend our attention.

Another issue we're facing is simply one of time. We have all these things we want to do, but we never get round to them. Information overload and information processing is what we end up spending so much of our day on.

Sometimes it’s good to take back control and decide to take time for ourselves, switched off from digital demands.

A digital detox can give you a feeling of freedom and space and time.

There’s time to think. There’s time to spend quality time with other people in person, talking without interruptions from a phone.

A positive way to approach the sometimes overwhelming digital world is to decide what you want to claim back some time for – just as those taking part in the National Day of Unplugging have done.

What would you like a few extra hours for, if you didn’t – say – have to answer those emails?

How could your time be better spent for a day than endlessly scrolling or surfing or answering to digital demands?

What or who gets neglected when you feel like you’re always on call?

A digital detox is a great way to help you deal with a complex, demanding digital life once you return to a screen.

The chances are that checking won’t feel quite as urgent as it did.

Perhaps you’ll be able to put your smartphone to one side for longer. Perhaps you’ll be able to focus more intently on work tasks, without allowing constant interruptions.

Start with a few hours switched off. Then see if you can extend this to a whole day. Switch off, step back, and breathe a sigh of relief.

If you need advice on how to get started, see my related article on How To Do A Digital Detox.

If you need more reasons why you should give it a go, see my related piece on 30 Reasons To Do A Digital Detox.

Now the only question is, how will you choose to spend that precious time?

Frances Booth is author of The Distraction Trap: How to Focus in a Digital World. To get your free first chapter of The Distraction Trap, and for more productivity tips, join her mailing list here