De-Digitalise & De-Stress
Is your world starting to be ruled by technology and your devices? As technology develops there is an expectation to be living in the instant / insta world as we have emails, text messages, Instagram, Facebook messenger, Snapchat, …all these different applications to communicate with each other. Are all these Apps really necessary? Or is this having a negative effect as we are always contactable and needing to be “on”?
From my experience, I never thought that I was becoming dependant, however on my last holiday I all of a sudden realised that my life was starting to be ruled by my phone and not on my own terms. On this holiday, I made the decision that I no longer needed all the Apps on my phone and that I needed to create some boundaries for myself. I decided to remove Facebook and email from my phone and through this process it has made me realise how much I would check my phone! I would be checking it as I walked to the studio, sitting at the traffic lights, and even as I watched a movie on a Saturday night I would glance over to check my emails!!
It has been liberating removing these Apps from my phone so I now have the power to decide when I will be checking and replying to my email and on my computer instead. This has given me a big sense of freedom, allowed me to be more productive with the way I work and freeing me up to make time for other projects.
When we are always expected to be contactable and living in the insta world we don’t seem to have enough time to relax and switch off mentally. Instead of working a fixed amount of days and time in the week, we are all of sudden working 24/7 as people assume you would have checked the email or message and they expect a quick reply. This creates stress and anxiety as you feel the need to always be available.
We need to start to set some boundaries so the digital world does not take over our lives! Instead of living in the insta world, be in our world, on our own terms. Maybe this next month ahead it is time to consider how much you are tied to your devices and consider taking some steps forward to freedom by turning off the notifications, or removing Facebook from your phone, or maybe like me remove email from your phone. Consider de-digitalising your life to de-stress and give you more freedom.