A Week or a Year Unplugged?

Yesterday, I posted about my week of being pseudo-unplugged. I also came across a post by a gentleman who actually unplugged entirely for a year. The timing seemed rather fitting, so I thought I should share his thoughts on the issue, too.

You can read his post here.

I suppose the reality is that the internet is very much an integral part of many lives these days and I don't know that it's just a simple flip of the switch to sail off to some imagined, idyllic life. As he mentioned, part of the equation is still you and your priorities and choices. That remains whether it's on- or offline. I suppose it's like many things in life - we have to learn how to handle it in moderation, knowing that sometimes we won't succeed, but plenty of other times we will. It's just a part of life.

What I learned Being Pseudo-Unplugged

Recently I decided to take a week off from that parts of the internet which become huge, time-sucking vortices. Vortexes. Vor Texas. For Texas....

As much as I think I'd like to unplug entirely, I know that it's just not that feasible. Too much of my life is connected - banking, paying bills, proofing, setting up a website, and so on. But I posited that I could gain a lot of valuable and, hopefully, productive time if my only internet time were spent upon specific tasks. I wrote about it here.

Monday was fantastic! Of course. It was the first day and I was highly motivated. I even started making journal entries to keep track of how my week went. I also decided to implement a Three Things system for each day. Every morning I wrote down three things that I felt really needed to be accomplished that day. It's much more palatable than a five-page To Do List. I completed one and a half things (one of them involved looking through 5-6 years of photos and scanning some which were specifically requested - a hefty project). One and a half items? Okay, not too bad. I suppose. However, I accomplished a whole bunch of other things, in addition to playing games with my kids, spending time outside, and dealing with all the dreaded hand-wash dishes. I felt great at the end of the day.

On Tuesday, I pulled off two and a half items. I also got out for a walk with Caleb, remembered to pick up Mother's Day cards, got a super deal on my B Complex, and had some fun time downtown with my mom. I walked a lot more than normal, which felt wonderful.

Wednesday rolled around and we had a drizzly, cooler day. I completed one item from my list of three. Ran some errands. Enjoyed Starbucks' Frappuccino Happy Hour with my boys and a sweet time of fellowship with friends.

By Thursday, I didn't write down anything. Not three or any other number. I don't know why. Things had just begun to fizzle, I guess. Plus I still had some leftovers from the first three days. I took Zach to bowling. I sat in my chair and finished reading a book. I ordered pizza for dinner.

But I also had a light bulb moment. From my little journal:

This week is a perfect example of how I roll.

That's exactly it. Over the years, I've had a number of times when I've "taken the week off" to accomplish something or another. Every time I do, the first day is amazing. The second day is just a notch or two lower. The third day's not bad. But by the fourth day, I'm pretty much done. Maybe this means that in the future, I shouldn't take an entire week off, because days four and five are usually somewhat guilt filled. Even if I need more time, just take three days sometime soon again.

As for the internet, I did quite well at staying away from Facebook and Twitter. I also was relatively focused when I was online. All in all, this was a good experiment.

I learned that three days holds my Maximum Accomplishment Potential.

I accomplished numerous things.

I had some fun hanging out with my kids.

A Week Unplugged

That's what this week will be. When I say unplugged, what I really mean is unplugged from the excessively great time sucking vortex portion of the internet. You know, like Facebook and Twitter and other such things. I may need to check the balance in our bank account, pay a bill, edit some images, or some such thing. But nothing that leads to trolling around the web, losing all track of time, and frittering the day away. It's an experiment in what can I accomplish if I free up some time and space in my life?

I'll be back to report my findings on Mother's Day or the day after.

In the meantime, how about a photo or two?

My youngest. Who is now 18.

I never thought of ducks as curious.

Have a great week, everyone! Catch ya' later.

Creativity Exercises

On Saturday, I got up at the crack of 8:00 or so to gear up and head down to a local park for a gathering of photographers who wished to stretch their creativite muscles. We were each required to bring a random object, some sort of camera, an open mind, and we had to be there on time.

I wracked my brain trying to come up with a good, random object to be photographed. Something with flexibility. Sometime fun and interesting. Aha - Socrates, Caleb's sock monkey. I was pretty excited about this choice. A sock monkey, a garden at the park, and a camera = fun photos. Or so I anticipated.

But these creativity exercises were about thinking outside the box, about being creative with whatever comes your way, about doing something different. So we were paired up with another photographer (10 of us total) and we each had 20 minutes to photograph our partner's random object in 10 images. Oooh, what a tricky leader/instructor we had. Obviously, my partner had it easy with Socrates. He came up with some pretty fun shots.

What did my partner bring? A pair of statues.

They turned out to be a very interesting couple to photograph.

For the second exercise, we had new partners and one person had to walk and walk and walk until the partner said to stop. Wherever you stopped, you would mark that location, and then you had 10 minutes in which to shoot 10 photos no further than 10' away from where you stopped, using the random objects or not. Naturally, my partner (our illustrious leader/instructor) was nice enough to stop me in the middle of a dirt trail. Fortunately, with my 10' radius, I could get to a few things. And I had a zoom lens on my camera, so that gave me some flexibility. Here are a few of those:

And for the third exercise, we had yet another partner and you had 10 minutes to take three photos in which you tell a story. My partner? Yeah, he got to tell a story with a sock monkey. Easy peasy, right? Me? He handed me his wallet. I had to tell a story in three photos with his wallet. Okay then.

Okay, it's not a Pulitzer Prize-winning story, but it's a story, nonetheless. Sometimes you have to work with what you have.

Spontaneous Family Day

While Sundays usually have some family time involved, we thought our day was going to look a bit different than it did. But it was one of those serendipitous moments when the plans changed and we had the day wide open before us, with pretty much nowhere to go and nothing to do (well, nothing urgent or planned). So we had a family day.

Actually, we squeezed in a couple of haircuts before the fun and games began. Poor John - it's been super windy around here and having his hair all in his face has been rather frustrating while trying to work. He wasn't fond of my bandana idea, either. Now he can see and work without all that hair interference.

We played Clue, which I know I haven't played in probably 8-9 years. The boys have probably played a little more recently, but not sure that it's been within the past 4-5 years. It was a blast! Interestingly, the murderous Mrs. White was guilty three out of four times! She's a treacherous one, that Mrs. White.

We also played a couple games of Yahtzee. It's been awhile since I've played that one, too. We made a run to the frozen yogurt joint in between games, though, which cooled the dice off significantly. Our second game was quite underwhelming. Fun with sad scores.






Oh yeah, John & I made a quick run over to the grocery store, where we were greeted in the checkstand line with this!

Yikes!

Since we had yogurt at around dinner time, no one was terribly hungry, so we watched a few episodes of Numb3rs on Netflix and snacked as the need arose.

All in all, a spontaneously wonderful day.

Too many options!