Last year, I fasted from Social Media and much of the internet for the month of July and it was a super fruitful time for me. You can read my post-fast thoughts here and here. Because of this, I have decided to do it again. The bottom line is I will be mostly offline between July 15 and August 14.
Here are the parameters I am laying out for myself:
No Twitter. No tweeting, no reading other people’s tweets. A lot of time I’m not really living in the moment, rather I’m trying to capture the moment to share with others in 140 characters or less.
No Facebook. I don’t need to catch up on everyone’s lives, photos, and status updates this month. I also don’t need to share everything from my world. Sorry to everyone with birthdays during this month…you’ll just have to live without me saying “happy birthday.”
No Google+. I am tempted to play with this one over the break to try to figure it out, but nope…it has to go.
No Blogging. Most of the time, I love writing for my blog. Sometimes it’s a chore. This month, it doesn’t matter because I won’t be doing any of it.
No Reading Blogs. This one might be the hardest for me, since I have a lot of blogs I like to keep up on and no one would know if I snuck a peak. But it’s time for some offline thinking.
Limited Email. I’ll periodically check my personal email, but for the most part I’m going to let my assistant handle my work email. If something earth-shattering is happening that needs my attention, I’ll have her let me know but for the most part I don’t think the world will end if I don’t respond to email. To this end, I’m going to disconnect my iPad and iPhone from my work email account so it’s harder for me to access and have my assistant change my password.
So what will I do with all of the time / mental energy I save?
Read the Bible, pray, and plan for the fall. I am really really excited because this fall I am starting a year long journey through the book of 1 Corinthians. I’ll take a bunch of time during the next month to get ramped up and ready for that.
Vacation with the Fam. We have a couple little trips planned (including a Cubs game and some time on Lake Michigan) and I am looking forward to some down time to focus on being a husband and a dad.
That’s about it. My plan is to be back online on August 15.
See ya then!