Switch Off

Away this weekend and I left the technology behind for a whole four days. I even survived without the mobile phone for much of it – only using it to contact fellow travellers and make arrangements and once to send a twitter message from the top of a hill, when we took a break in the sunshine.

I did of course come back to a full inbox of emails – mostly junk but quickly dispatched. I’ve never had email on the move, from choice more than limited technology or capability. While it might be useful at times – there is rarely anything that’s so urgent that it won’t wait until I return to the office and clients rarely want or need to contact me out of hours and if they did the phone is a quicker and more reliable means of contact.

I know some people can’t survive without constantly being in touch or being able to send and receive emails at any time of the day and night but there are always other things I can be doing when I have spare time on the move rather than checking emails. I even leave my mobile phone behind or switched off at times and I purposely don’t have all the whizz-bang, bluetooth headset, hands-free, technology. In that respect I’m probably technologically backward but actually, I want to decide what to do when, not have technology deciding for me.

Now the demands of my work are probably different from yours but how attached are you to your technology? Are you really in control of your time and the technology or is it controlling you? While it’s there to make life easier, if can also make it more demanding. Do you find it hard to switch off in case you miss something? How much of a difference will it really make to be instantly contactable?

Think about the technology you use and the way that you use it - could you use it less, have more time for yourself without reducing your productivity?