For over a week I’ve been testing the limits of working offline, with a goal connecting no more than one hour per day. This experiment in renunciation conceptually overlaps with Tim Ferriss’ Low Information Diet, but for the time being I’m only concerned with reducing my connectivity, not necessarily my intake of information. Even still, the one-hour limit has forced me to be more selective in how much I read, so in effect it is an information diet. The unplugging “progressive” in two senses.
- The reduction was gradual. Though the goal is less than an hour online per day, I didn’t want to trigger a relapse by overcommitting. That said, I only spent 25 minutes online Sunday — it’s getting easier.
- It isn’t meant to repudiate technology. I wanted to see if I could learn to use the internet for effectively by thinking more and reacting less.
I mentioned recently that when I switched from using a PDA and the Palm Desktop to using a Filofax, it felt like waking up from a trance. Leaving my laptop behind has had an exponentially greater wakeup effect.
“The screen is no comfort. I can’t speak my sentence.”
That line from a Midnight Oil song never felt truer than it did this week. To reduce the possibility of binge surfing, I left the laptop at home and wrote elsewhere, alternating between a legal pad folio and an Alphasmart Neo. It’s amazing how much more easily words come when I’m not staring into a screen, and how much more enjoyably. I feel more present with my surroundings in general. Previously, even when I was nowhere near a computer, I always felt as though I had one hemisphere in my laptop.
But there have been problems, especially in trying to reconcile social networking with remaining offline. I haven’t maintained my social bookmarks lately. I’m slower to respond to email and comments. I still want to stay in the loop with other bloggers.
Right now I’m using part of the hour online to isolate the few feeds with posts I want to comment on, printing them and taking them with me. Whenever I have some discretionary time, I draft my responses directly on their respective printouts, then enter these the next time I’m back online. While that doesn’t give me the presumed benefit of posting my comments early in a thread, the quality of the comments is much more contemplative.
Reading things offline is a much more focused experience than reading the very same things online. When I read a blog post online and come across a link within the text, I can choose to click on the link or ignore it — but in either case, I have to make a choice. Reading offline creates less mental overhead. Choosing not to follow a link is more distracting than not having a choice. With or without links, having fewer reading options allows me to concentrate on the reading in front of my without the impulse to move on the moment I come across a boring or difficult passage.
“Take a load off, Fanny”
While I started this experiment by writing on the Neo, I’m more inclined to use the legal pad folio. I find that since I have to put the Neo in a carrying case, my impulse is to put more things in the case: a book, a legal pad, a couple of folders, and at least one or two other things. It became the volumetric equivalent of Parkinson’s Law, where I was filling any available space. This is one of the reasons why Frank Lloyd Wright hated adding closets to his bedroom designs.
The folio restricts me to carrying only the legal pad and the printouts I want to comment on. There are no time fillers to fall back on if I get bored. As a recovering compulsive reader who used to read 3 to 4 books a week, I have to be careful about carrying around a book at all times. Now I’m more deliberate about when and how I read.
It’s a nice feeling to be able to walk around without all the baggage I would tote when I used a laptop. I can start writing immediately, without worrying about electrical outlets or wireless access. Because 100% of my attention is on what I want to say, finishing an article or post takes a lot less time than it used to.
How much work is unpluggable?
Being a writer is different from being, say, a sales representative for a pharmaceutical company. For many people who rely on spreadsheets or email, working with just pen and paper is not an option. I still think that limiting connectivity is a worthwhile experiment for most people. Like most things in life, unplugging is not an either-or choice, but a matter of trying something new to see how far it can be taken, just as a learning experience.
The key is to think of it as an experiment instead of a commitment. Figure out the absolute minimum amount of time you actually need to be online, and redesign your day in accordance with that. Ask yourself how you would get your work done if being online was not an option. How long can you really go without checking email? How much social networking are you emotionally willing to let lapse? Is catching up an acceptable alternative to keeping up? Is being in the loop an actual need or just an assumption?
Try it for a day or a week, just for the sport of it. You just might surprise yourself.
Comments
Ian Parker
// Jun 23, 2008 at 10:44 pm
Andre,
Last week, I decided to move my calendar and to-do lists offline and back into good old paper notebooks. It was quite refreshing. I, too, experienced an immediate burst of productivity and felt less stressed when working on the computer.
Additionally, I moved all of my e-mail into one central GMail account, and stopped using a desktop e-mail client. Doing this made me check e-mail less often and also lowered my stress about things that did not need my immediate attention. With no notifications popping up all day, I could concentrate.
I do like your idea about going offline more often, however. I will try it starting this week. I had already begun to write ideas for posts on my site in the notebook, but now I need to take it to the next level and write the posts themselves offline. Also, some of my research can be planned in advance, and I can then chunk the searches into one session of online work.
This is a great post. I have found that most of what I need to accomplish can be done just as efficiently without a computer or PDA, and sometimes even more efficiently. I suppose it comes down to how you work, and how often the technology is readily available to use. For me, pencil and paper can be used anywhere and are plenty portable. The question is, “Will I miss social networking?” I’m thinking not. Time will tell.
Be well.
Ian
john pasmore
// Jun 24, 2008 at 4:13 pm
very impressed with this post — i ditched my blackberry from 2004 thru 2006 (though relapased now). I am going to print this out and take with me in a folio…as a start.
Charlie Gilkey | Productive Flourishing
// Jun 25, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Great post, Andre.
I’m starting to realize that the worst thing I did for myself was start working in my living room. Since I do most of my work in here, my laptop tends to hang out in the living room after work. Now, because I do it at work, I’ll check email every now and again - when I’m not working, too. I’m now going through the unplugging process (again - I was doing so well), but I’m having to move work (and my laptop) back into my home office to make any headway.
The effect location has on your ability to work or change habits is amazing. I haven’t reflected or written about that nearly enough.
I’ve thought about going back to hand writing since I’ve noticed how much more effective I am when I design on paper. It’s annoying at first - but there’s a liberating point when you realize that the 5 minutes of 100% focus is a very good tradeoff for the 30 seconds it’ll take to line something out or erase it. Sure, on a laptop, I don’t have to erase (delete button, YAY!), but I also am only operating at 75-80% focus most of the time (Distractions, BOO!).
The stand out one-liner: “It became the volumetric equivalent of Parkinson’s Law, where I was filling any available space.” (Completely off-topic, but this reminds me of the women who stuff as much food in their purse as possible as they’re leaving the all you can eat buffet.) I can just see you maximizing your bag to see how many items you can get in it.
Thanks for sharing with us!
Andre
// Jun 25, 2008 at 8:08 pm
@Ian,
I recently went through the PDA-to-Filofax conversion, as I wrote about in this post, and experienced a productivity boost as well. That’s what got me started on the concept of unplugging. I wanted to see how far I could take it. I think I’m going to have to increase the online time to two hours. The one-hour limit sounds better in theory, but inputting and printing things out without getting behind isn’t working. Maybe I’ll get a VA ;-)
@John,
The folio is a good start. Pretty soon you start thinking of it as your workstation. Good luck undoing the Blackberry relapse. Another world is possible.
@Charlie,
I think there a few issue surrounding longhand vs. typing that make the former more compelling for me. Word processors are more efficient mechanically, but my priority is speed of composition over speed of input. I once read an essay arguing that there are two types of writers: those who immediately know the exact wording of what they want to write, and those who are constantly groping for words. For those in the former group, typing is easier, because it’s just a process of transcription. For those in the latter group (me), longhand reflects a more somatic processes. I’m always “listening” to the words I write as I’m writing them to check if they sound and feel like they express what I want to say authentically.
There’s also a physical satisfaction to seeing pages I’ve written that I simply can’t get from looking at a word count or a page view. Writing on paper is like jogging on the street. Writing on a word processor is like jogging on a treadmill. I have no physical sense of the terrain I’ve covered when I can only see one page.
Many women get the smallest purse they can find to prevent themselves from looking for reasons to carry more stuff. I did carry less stuff when I switched from a standard laptop bag to the much small carrying case for the Neo, but I needed to take it a step further. But yeah, I do get the more-is-better virus from time to time, and look at empty time and space as an opportunity cost. I’m still recovering.
J-Mo
// Jun 29, 2008 at 7:03 pm
This is a great post!
I, too, am a writer, and I actually PREFER drafting by hand, in a journal. I own dozens of journals, and I try to carry one with me whenever I can–or at the very least, to set aside time each day for journaling.
I use a regular, paper, desktop calendar issued by my employer for all planning (use Outlook at work, because I have to–I pay the bills as a secretary, so it’s necessary.) No Blackberry, Palm, etc. for me. I use my cell phone as an alarm clock and address book when I’m on the road, but everything else is paper.
I have a laptop, but it does not go anywhere with me unless I’m working on something and the document is stored on the laptop. I also take it when I travel.
On weekends, I only check email once–sometimes twice–per day. All of my other time is spent offline, doing real-time projects (I’m also an artist and photographer.) I prefer to engage with life when I’m on my own time.
Again: Excellent post!
J-Mo
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