Nice Minimal

No phone in my pockets

Before leaving for 10 days vacation I decided to make a conscious effort in taking a break from my digital life. I left at home the following devices:

I took with me the following items:

I am visiting my grandparents in the countryside, the place Is very quiet. My typical day consists in waking up, working out for 30min, taking a shower, having breakfast, going for a walk, pick some wild figs, chat with my grandma, take a nap. Not much going on, but I love it.

During my quiet days, I noticed one constant. If I have my phone in my pocket, no matter what I had planned to do, I’ll end up using it. This is very frustrating given my initial commitment of taking a break from the digital life. However, I noticed that the opposite is also true. If I don’t have my phone with me, I’ll just do what I was planning to do without missing anything.

Therefore I started leaving my phone in my room altogether. A couple of days ago I went for a short hike taking with me some water and my book. I found some shade and ended up finishing the book in a couple of hours. The other day I took my camera with me, and had a lot of fun taking pictures of the scenery and portraits of my cousins. This morning I had a coffe while reading from my BooxPalma in the coolness of the morning, and made some good progress.

Unsurprisingly, the days are much vivid in my memory, I feel more present and most important I feel that I am really on vacation. Even with a conscious use, I feel that whenever I use my phone I am just exhausted.

Tomorrow I am off, and back home. But I wander if I can take some of the learnings that I made these days back to my busy and city life.