Tomorrow is International Hermit Day. It really is. Look it up! I don’t know who came up with the idea but I like it. I’m not sure if this is just a coincidence or not. But, a month ago, I was sitting with my goals and my personal check-in sheet. I do a lot of my work in Evernote. But I began to wonder what it would be like if I didn’t have it as a tool anymore. It might be a fairly traumatic circumstance. Then that led down the slippery path of ‘what if I didn’t have any of this technology?’ I began to reflect and realized that I just do so many things without thinking. I would get up and the first thing that I grabbed would be my iPad. I would do my morning reading on my iPad and then I would go downstairs, pull up some youtube videos to do my exercise, then sit down to do writing or check email on my computer.
Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with technology. I LOVE it! But, I also recognized while thinking that in addition to all of the good, my phone is still near me for most of the day and so is my iPad. I’m always connected. When my phone rings, even if I don’t answer it, I am still distracted by it. When an email comes in, I’m tempted to respond, unless my inbox is paused. When a notification dings across the top of my screen, I’m tempted to check the tweet or the status update or whatever the distraction of the moment is. I work and then I take a break but sometimes that break may still be at the computer. The break may be allowing myself the opportunity to roam Facebook mindlessly for 15 minutes.
So, with all of this in mind, I decided that in honor of Hermit Day, I was going to have my own disconnect day. Yep, that’s right! I’m going to attempt to continue to work and go through the day without any of my devices. I will still write, but its going to be old school. I won’t check email. I’ll put the phone away and check only at 4 specific times in case my wife or children’s teachers have called. But, for the most part, I will be a tech hermit tomorrow.
I’m not sure what it will be like after all these years. But, I’m sure that it will be a different experience. I don’t know what I’ll find. I might “reconnect” to some other things that I’d forgotten. I’ll let you know about it on Thursday!
I’m thinking about it.