January 5, 2017

#5 Commit to Offline Times & Places

Not only to simplify and increase your fulfillment, but surprisingly you can increase your productivity by going offline. Counter intuitive, right? But trust me. It’s tough to do; so much of our lives are now online. But it will be like a breath of fresh air…

Commit to Offline Times and Places

We LIVE online. How did this happen? No question; we women over 60 have seen the most dramatic innovations in human-kind. (Men over 60, too, but we women actually noticed.) Most have been helpful, too.

What would life be without the invention of:

An ATM
Birth Control Pills
GPS
The Internet
Remote Control (the men noticed this one)
Cordless tools
Cell Phone
Digital Music
Smoke Detectors
Prozac

Seriously, can you even imagine? While technology had a role in the development of birth control pills and Prozac, all others ARE technology. Not only they all a technology, today they’re all managed / accessible through the internet.

ATM – mobile banking;
GPS – Google Maps or Waze;
Remote Control – Apple TV, Direct TV online, Dish Hopper…
Cordless Tools – well, not REAL tools, but still there’s an app for a lot – levels, lights, compass, etc…
Cell Phone – Skype and Viber and Google Talk and…
Digital Music – Spotify, iTunes, Pandora,…
Smoke Detectors – how about smart houses, Nest, remote access to your smoke detector…

What Does NOT Involve the Internet?

The areas of our lives that do NOT involve the internet is becoming the exception rather than the norm. The internet has completely changed our existence. The change is for the better, for the most part, as long as we have healthy boundaries. Setting boundaries can protect us from the unhealthy behavior of others. Boundaries can also protect us from our own unhealthy behavior. In addition to all the wonderful things the internet makes possible, the internet can also instigate some bad behavior by making us:

Waste our time
Lazy
Spend money we don’t have
“Say” evil, mean-spirited things we’d never dream of saying to anyone in person
Believe everyone else online has the perfect life and ours is sub-par
Waste our time
Lazy
Spend money we don’t have
Waste our time

I wrote a post earlier this month about time passing so quickly. As we reach 60 and over, it doesn’t slow down. Wasting time (or money) is not something I want to do anymore. So, #4 on my list of ways to create a. more simplified and fulfilling life in 2018 is to commit to offline times and places.

#5 Commit to Offline Times and Places

If you read the Time Flies post, I don’t need to elaborate on ways the internet can sap our productivity, relationships, and health, nor the difference between being connected and being “in flow”. Taking control of when, where and how I immerse myself (or not) online is key to improving my productivity, relationships, and health. It is key to a more simplified and fulfilling life. This year I’m committing to:

Offline Times

Mealtime
Bedtime
Standing in line time
Drive time

Offline places

Dinner table
Restaurants
Driver’s seat
Public seatings (theaters, arenas, churches, etc)

These may, or may not work for you. You may add others. Let us know what you think.

PS – Word of the day is Digiphrenia: the constant, insane dual personalities people are immersed in between their phones and the real life around them. Or, from 2013’s Douglas Rushkoff’s Present Shock, “The tension between the faux present of digital bombardment and the true now of a coherently living human generates the second kind of present shock, what we’re calling digiphrenia—digi for “digital,” and phrenia for “dissordered condition of mental activity.”