So… Alex and I have been in Mexico for the past 5 days. I fully intended to share some Instagrams from the beach and snap some pictures of the delicious food here but I decided to just disconnectI brought my computer, thinking that I would just hop on occasionally to read a few blogs and see what was going on in the land of the internet. But once we got to the resort, we tossed our phones in the safe and gave up on trying to connect to the wifi and it was awesome

Truthfully, it was sort of weird knowing that no one could get in touch with us for 5 days and there was a small part of me wondering “What if someone texts me and they don’t know I’m on vacation?” but that part quickly faded and I just enjoyed our vacation. I thought a lot about relaxing and disconnecting and what all of that means. While this little “digital detox” was nice, I wanted to think about how I could bring some of this back home with me in a practical way. I don’t plan on cutting the internet cord completely, but I think there are a few things that could help me restore a little balance. 

disconnecting

1. It’s ok to just be still. I can stop taking my phone everywhere. It’s my crutch. My way to kill time when I’m waiting for something. My way to feel like I’m connected to everything. It’s tool for distracting myself when I don’t want to get something done. And that’s… not totally healthy. It was amazing how much clearer my thoughts seemed when I wasn’t checking a screen every 10 seconds. (At first, it felt like torture. What am I supposed to do when Alex goes to the bathroom and I’m just sitting at the table? Don’t worry,  you get used to it.)

2. The Do Not Disturb feature isn’t just for sleeping. If you’re not already using this feature on your phone TRY IT. (On an iphone, swipe up to bring up that menu where you turn on and off your wifi and click on that little moon icon.) Not only does it turn off the sound of notifications but it turns off the screen too. No more flashing screen every 10 seconds when someone repins your pin or likes your Instagram photo. It makes it much easier to break the habit of checking the screen constantly.

3. Distance makes the heart grow fonder. Have you ever spent an hour on Facebook and by the end you’re not even really enjoying it and you realize you just wasted an hour of your REAL LIFE looking at photos online? (Mom & Dad, I know you don’t have Facebook, but trust me. This is a real thing that people do.) But after a few days of being off the grid, it’s kind of fun to come back and scroll through your feed and see what people have been up to. I can catch up on what my good friends are doing without wondering how I ended up on my friend’s, cousin’s, boyfriend’s band’s Facebook page.

So while I’m back, I think I’m going to try to carry this vacation mentality with me a little longer. 😉

Do you have any tips for balancing life and the internet?

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