Unplugged! How I successfully unplugged from my phone and internet for 24 hours.

Last Friday, I decided to take part in the National Day of Unplugging. The National Day of Unplugging was created by Reboot and promotes a day each year when people unplug from their phones, laptops, iPads, and pretty much anything that connects to the internet. This year the National Day of Unplugging was from sundown March 6 to sundown March 7. I ended up starting a little later in the evening but fully committed to staying unplugged for twenty four hours. The point of the twenty four hour sabbatical is to connect more with family while disconnecting from our phones and the internet.

Previously, I had unplugged on multiple occasions for several hours at a time but never for a full day. As a member of Generation X, I felt that I would be able to accomplish the challenge of unplugging for twenty four hours without much difficulty since my perception was that I was not as connected to my phone and internet as others. I found out over the next twenty four hours however that I was wrong in that assessment. The following details my twenty four hour adventure with unplugging as I definitely went through a wide range of emotions and viewpoints during my sabbatical.

Friday Night

At 7:45 PM on Friday, I prepared for the twenty four hour sabbatical. I called my dad to make sure he was alright. He was getting over an illness and I wanted to make sure he was recovered. Fortunately he was feeling better. I finished two articles I was reading online and then turned off both my iPhone and laptop at 8:30 PM. My commitment was twenty four hours without my iPhone, iPad and laptop and I was ready for the challenge.

I also decided that no internet meant no streaming (no Roku) and the only device I would still use is Directv and the DVR as they were not connected to the internet. The first hour went fine and I was enjoying not hearing my phone ring (Haddaway’s What is Love ringtone) or hearing my text alert (Old Spice commercial whistle) go off. At 9:30 PM, I had a sudden urge to check my iPhone. It was really weird because it was a very strong urge, almost like a craving. Instead of craving ice cream or pizza, I was craving my iPhone. I grabbed my iPhone and then remembered that it was turned off and would not be on again for another twenty three hours.

The next two hours went fine and I ended up watching SportsCenter and then watched the movie Speed before falling asleep. I am a school teacher and usually when 11:00 pm hits, I am usually asleep within 30 minutes. For those curious, I teach Science so conducting experiments is something that I enjoy doing on a regular basis. I am also an entrepreneur and proud owner of BrodieEDU, an education consulting company that also includes motivational speaking to college campuses and companies. With my schedule, I tend to fall asleep rather quickly. I figured that I would be able to sleep for the next ten to eleven hours and could easily make it through Saturday.

Saturday Morning

On Saturday morning, I was able to catch up on sleep and did not get up until 10:30 am. The eleven hours definitely helped not only with recharging the batteries but with also making it through the twenty four hours of unplugging. When I woke up, the first thing I wanted to do was to pick up my iPhone. Typically the first thing I do is turn on my iPhone, check messages, texts, emails, and then Facebook and Instagram. I suddenly remembered that I left my iPhone downstairs and also the twenty four hour sabbatical. At that point I realized that it was going to be a long day ahead.

I had my obligatory morning cappuccino and watched English Premier League Soccer on my DVR. Several times while watching the EPL, I had that urge again to grab my iPhone to check other soccer scores. The other thing I realized was that I did not know Saturday’s date and again attempted to grab my iPhone before realizing that I could just click the info button on my remote control to get the date.

As I was watching the EPL, I thought of several ideas for my motivational seminars and yet again grabbed my iPhone to enter the information. Upon realizing that I would not be able to enter the information, I went old school and got out a pen and pad and throughout the day ended up writing down four pages of ideas. Again, I was reminded of the dependence on my iPhone. I started to reflect on everything that I use on my iPhone including daily to-do lists, ideas for seminars and classroom lessons, grocery lists, phone calls, FaceTime, Skype, text messaging, emails, social media, finding music on Shazam, weather conditions, and checking my bank account on the Chase app. It really hit me how dependent we are on our phones.

Saturday Afternoon

At around 12:30 PM, I was finished with watching the EPL. Usually at this point, I would be working on a new segment idea for one of my seminars or developing a lesson for my classroom. Instead, I decided to go outside and spend some quality time with my dogs. After two weeks of miserable weather, we finally had sunshine and it was great to have an uninterrupted hour of relaxation outside. The weather was cool but sunny and it felt like being on vacation. My mom came out to join us and it was nice to have a decent conversation with talking about life, future plans for vacations during the summer (one of the best perks about being a teacher), and not having any interruptions from my iPhone or email notifications from my laptop or iPad.

One other lesson I learned throughout the day was to focus more or mono tasking versus multitasking. I didn't have ten open tabs in Google Chrome running on my laptop and instead had a pen and pad and focused on one item at a time. It was old school but it was refreshing to mono task.

Later in the day I needed to go grocery shopping. The only list I used was in my head and yet I managed to get all of the items from both Aldi and Walmart. After returning home I spent another half hour outside during sunset relaxing with my dogs and also did a little meditating. It has been a while since meditating and it was a nice opportunity to do so. My mantra is the word nothing and by having no phone or internet, it was much easier to focus on nothing while enjoying nature.

Saturday Night

I made it to 7:30 pm and I will admit that the final hour did seem to go rather slowly. After taking some more notes, many of which have made it to this post, it was 8:30 PM. I turned on my iPhone and laptop and caught up on social media and texts, phone calls, and emails.

Epilogue

I also had a picture taken as part of the National Day of Unplugging that I have included below. It was submitted to the National Day of Unplugging Website and is currently on the main page (http://nationaldayofunplugging.com). In the picture we were asked to hold a piece of paper that asks why you chose to unplug. I wrote that I unplug to choose life.

Spending the twenty four hour period unplugged was well worth it as I definitely made the decision to choose life. I learned that I needed to mono task more, turn off my iPhone and laptop more often, and connect more with family. It also was great to reconnect with meditating and enjoying the outdoors. I will definitely be making more of an effort to enjoy both.

Was it challenging at times? Absolutely! Will I do it again next year? Definitely!