Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is too unplug to get things done. Consciously putting
Speaker 1: yourself somewhere without digital distractions might help you power through
Speaker 1: something you have been procrastinating on. So a few weeks ago,
Speaker 1: the Wi Fi went out at my house. It's kind
Speaker 1: of a long story about how this all happened, and
Speaker 1: it wound up being out for about a week. In
Speaker 1: the first day, before we figured out some workarounds, we
Speaker 1: truly had very little digital access. I couldn't load web
Speaker 1: pages or email on my phone when I was inside
Speaker 1: the house, and my laptop couldn't access the internet either.
Speaker 1: This was all frustrating, but there was this silver lining.
Speaker 1: I had been putting off working on a draft of
Speaker 1: an article. On Friday. After my internet went out, I
Speaker 1: couldn't do a lot of other things, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: pretend to be productive by checking my email a lot.
Speaker 1: So I wrote a draft. It only took me a
Speaker 1: few hours when I wasn't giving myself the option of
Speaker 1: doing a million other things at the same time. Perhaps
Speaker 1: you've experienced something similar on a plane now I know
Speaker 1: you can get Wi Fi on a lot of planes
Speaker 1: these days, but sometimes you can't if you are over water,
Speaker 1: and sometimes the system is a little buggy or expensive.
Speaker 1: If it is a short flight, I tend not to
Speaker 1: make an attempt. I have often assigned myself a writing
Speaker 1: project on the plane and found I have been able
Speaker 1: to crank something sizable out by the time we land.
Speaker 1: We often rely on connectivity to take a break from work.
Speaker 1: Now we don't necessarily think of it that way. We
Speaker 1: can convince ourselves that the emails need to get sent
Speaker 1: and such, and maybe they do, but maybe not immediately.
Speaker 1: Depriving ourselves of easy brakes sometimes means we soldier through.
Speaker 1: If you find that to be the case for you,
Speaker 1: then maybe you can consciously unplug for a bit now.
Speaker 1: I would not recommend asking your yard crew to accidentally
Speaker 1: cut the cable, which is what turned out to happen
Speaker 1: for us, but you could create the equivalent. Put your
Speaker 1: phone in airplane mode or put it somewhere else. Go
Speaker 1: somewhere with no WiFi, assign yourself something that is going
Speaker 1: to take some serious concentration to do. Now, you will
Speaker 1: probably want to check things at some point, and that
Speaker 1: is fine. It is actually really hard to concentrate on
Speaker 1: anything for more than ninety minutes or so, so you
Speaker 1: might take a ten minute break. Make sure nothing disastrous
Speaker 1: has happened in your world. My guess is that it hasn't,
Speaker 1: and hopefully that truth will empower you to try disconnecting
Speaker 1: more often. In any case, we eventually got the Wi
Speaker 1: Fi working again, so I haven't had to go work
Speaker 1: in Starbucks or the library. I can check email constantly
Speaker 1: if I wish to, but remembering all I got done
Speaker 1: on that Friday, I am trying not to. It is
Speaker 1: best to keep these things in check in the meantime.
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
Speaker 1: the most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.
Speaker 1: If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach
Speaker 1: me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.