2026-08-13
My Finch1 app has a challenge ongoing with 14 goals to complete for the month. Today's goal was to spend an evening fully offline.
Search results show that 5pm to 9pm is generally considered to be the evening. I set alarms. Phone went down to charge at 5 and I spent 4 straight hours in complete darkness reading, fixing some clay that had dried up too much, exercising, and having a quiet dinner.
Going any period of time without tech tends to be most difficult in the first 20 minutes. I gravitate towards my phone almost without thinking, so I put a weird object on top of my phone to remind myself that I'm not using my phone right now. It's odd to not be able to research something the moment I think about it (and the thought is long gone now... I'm sure I had some important question about how elephant trunks work or how life on Earth affects the color of the sky...).
Usually when I take these tech breaks, I go a full 24 hours and plan offline activities. This was my first time going a shorter period of time intentionally. These resets are good for the mind, but also a gauge on how bad my technology addiction is at the moment.
In any case, this shorter break was probably good for me. I was a bit nervous to pause my daily learning plan, but I might still put in time before logging off (came back to edit, I did put in some time). Being able to get back into a routine after a pause has never been my strong point, so now's my chance to practice.