You Owe it to Yourself to Unplug Once in a While

You might want to continue the habit post-vacation. Here’s why.

I’m off to a remote corner of Western Michigan where cell phone and Internet access is sporadic at best. I can’t wait. I might read a paperback (in paper form), do some fly fishing and mountain biking in the woods and enjoy looking at my Blackberry with ZERO BARS. Out of sight out of mind = Outa Sight!

While I’m out, I recommend you take a look at Silicon Valley Says Step Away From the Device by Matt Richtel and Life’s Too Short for So Much E-Mail by Nick Bolton. “The lure of constant stimulation—the pervasive demand of pings, rings and updates—is creating a profound physical craving that can hurt productivity and personal interaction,” argues Richtel. According to market research firm Radicati Group, the average corporate employee gets 105 e-mails a day. How many of those are really important? Not that many, researchers say. In fact, a University of California Irvine report this year found that people who do not look at e-mail regularly at work were less stressed and more productive than others.

Our Take: Fortunately, most of us work at organizations in which our productivity and creativity is what matters most, not “face time” at our cubicles. Likewise, it’s not how quickly or how frequently you respond to e-mail, tweets and social media posts, but the quality and relevance of your responses.

Quality over quantity wins every time. Just as it has for centuries before us.

PS: Does anyone out there know how to tie a fly? Without access to eHow and YouTube, I’m starting to feel like a doofus in my oversize waders?

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TAGS: Unplugged from technology, Western Michigan, Matt Richtel, Nick Bolton, Radicati Group, University of California Irvine, eHow,  YouTube