Mojo Mom’s top three benefits of spending two weeks offline

After living largely offline for about two weeks now I am finally feeling the benefits. I have only checked email and surfed briefly each day. It seems like “quitting the internet” is becoming the trendy thing to do these days, but truly, I am doing this out of personal necessity. I am deep in the woods of my “undisclosed location” and checking in today only to report the benefits I am experiencing from logging off!

1. I am letting go of all the noise that doesn’t matter. This includes realizing that only about 10% of my email is either personal, important, or requires action. I should get off a lot of lists when I get home. I also need to pare my interests and involvements down as well, stop spreading myself so thinly, and recommit to the creative, professional, and activist priorities that meant the most to me. It feels like I need to prune back a lot in order to send out some new branches (which I’ll tell you more about in the coming months, when the plans are fully sprouted!). A lot of what I have to give up on is interesting and meaningful, but the question is what do I really need to stay focused on to reach my key goals for the next year?

By the way, when I check in with the news, I realize how trivial and/or depressing most of it is. I could live my whole life without reading another word about the Kardashians. And even on straight-up news sites, the wire news is mostly about death and violence, a lot of which really does not need to be brought to my constant attention. Random tragedy makes news, but what is the mental cost of taking that in all the time?

2. I am spending more time with my family, nature, sun, wind and water, and lots of exercise. After publishing a book earlier this year, which required untold hours at my desk, I really needed to get my butt in gear again on a basic physical level.

3. My mind is free to roam and is really connecting with what I want to do next. What a concept for a Mom–what do I want to do? We should all spend more time really connecting with that concept, whether it is what I would want to do with three hours of free time, what do I want to eat for dinner, or what do I want to write my next book about?

On the professional front, new plans are cropping up at an amazing speed without the distraction of the usual “noise” of the constant news cycle. This is very exciting to me, after feeling as burned out as I did this spring, following my latest book publication and unexpected, ongoing family crisis. It was important for me to realize that a few days of vacation did not instantly, completely recharge my batteries, but I am getting there. I needed to create time and space for my mind to settle down, roam, and unconsciously consider many ideas. So in the past two weeks, I read for fun. I sat and did nothing. I swam in a lake. It has been glorious.

I am still on my mostly-offline break. Not being strict about it feels helpful, too–it’s not forbidden, it’s just not necessary. In the meantime, I am hoping to capture and organize all these good ideas while they are fresh in my head. I plan to be back to a more regular blogging schedule next week, so I will see you then!