Disconnect to help productivity (and your sanity)

Everyone who knows me knows one thing… I am ALWAYS online, in some form, or in some context. Through various means almost anyone can reach me, at any given time… until recently anyway.

I used to always do my best to be aware of what was happening online, both in my personal life (like this blog) and for my business. But what I’ve come to realize lately is that it’s not always a good thing. For a couple reasons:

Productivity suffers – it’s true, if you are constantly checking your email, or looking at your phone, or reviewing your social media sites, while you are staying “in tune” with the happenings, it affects your output. Those little distractions detract from your focus and slow your progress. You can actually be MORE productive by being LESS available.

Sanity suffers -in essence you are always “on”, you never stop working or focusing on these things. So you never completely relax and just enjoy what life is offering you. So I’m doing my best to turn away from the incessant beeping of new twitter posts from those I follow, or newsletter updates, or texts, and yes, even phone calls. My thinking here is that if it is REALLY a matter of urgency, people will continue to try to reach you, and eventually will. Does this have the potential to be bad? Of course, but the times when something is THAT critical, there are other ways to reach out to people, just because your phone is off, or you are not checking your email, doesn’t mean that those around you aren’t. So in a matter of life or death, people can get through to you if necessary.

I’m not saying completely ignore all attempts to contact you. Rather that it’s OK to leave your phone in the other room, or to shut down your email program, or hide that fact that you are logged in to Facebook. Really, it’s OK. Everyone will survive your absence. If someone NEEDS to get ahold of you THAT badly then you will eventually hear your phone constantly ringing (or maybe you hear it ring, but don’t go to check it until it goes off for the 3rd time in a row), or you’ll glance at your emails (just to see how many are there, or skim the subjects – but DON’T open any non-essentials and take away from your downtime/focus on work time).

So feel free to turn away from your technology. It’s all right. Maybe you will have 50 emails to reply to when you come back to it tomorrow morning, but your mind will be fresh, your thoughts will be clear, and your sanity will be intact.

Lessons I’m learning everyday. (-:

Gerg