Hello my friends,

I am part way through the first week of my Reboot/Combat/Capacity Building. Woo hoo!

But before I get into how my tech-disrupted week is going, I wanted to flag this pretty cool article in The Guardian by Rebecca Solnit called “Hope is an embrace of the unknown” - it’s an oldie but a goodie. About how hope is the ultimate resistance to cynicism and despair.

She quotes American 20th century public intellectual Paul Goodman who famously said: “Suppose you had the revolution you are talking and dreaming about. Suppose your side had won, and you had the kind of society that you wanted. How would you live, you personally, in that society? Start living that way now!”

And I figured we all needed that reminder about hope and social change these days, given… you know… [gestures vaguely]. Here’s a link to Solnit’s article.

So now - back to the main event. My tech-disruption week.

I’ve found this week to be pretty good. It was really (really) good to have two days on Monday and Tuesday with no smartphone use. I’ve mostly kept that up for Wednesday, and this morning.

Here are a few overarching observations:

First, it was virtually impossible to go completely smartphone-free for two days while still having my smartphone in my possession. I found my life is so intertwined with my smartphone in very functional ways, it was hard to anticipate. So of course, I resorted to using it…

For example, I woke up on Monday morning to discover I didn’t have any cash for my son’s school lunch that day, so I had to e-transfer. This was one of three moments on Monday when I used my smartphone. But instead of getting caught up in executing this week's tech-disruption process “perfectly” I focused on what these small incidents showed me. Namely:

• My life is intertwined with technology in the smallest of ways, and sometimes that is useful
• Even with these very few tiny moments of smartphone use, I paused before picking up my phone and considered if I needed to use it. I appreciated the pause - and in those instances I decided that fretting over using the device in these intentional ways just wasn’t worth it… So I used it (it’s fine).
• It was still useful to not use my smartphone for the remaining time during those two days

Second, my urges to pick up my smartphone are usually from boredom. Resisting the boredom is hard. But here again I found “the pause” to be really useful, asking myself: “What’s this reach about?” I’ve found so far that if I don’t try to fill the boredom, my mind and body will settle. I have been turning to reading (a book, or the newspaper on my laptop when I’m at work), or listening (to a podcast, the radio, or music). Sometimes I daydream - yeah, remember daydreaming??

So far, reading, listening, and daydreaming have helped me feel calmer. In a few short days, I feel like I have more mental space to remember things. REALLY.

Lastly, I am appreciating my morning meditations. It’s been a nice, gentle way for me to crawl towards my day before the morning scurry to get out the door.

Given that I’m only 3-ish days into this technology-disruption, I don’t have much to report on how things have been going with tracking my time and actions through my tool “Finding Your Work-Life Mix” - more on that soon, I hope.

What’s up for next week (January 13 - 19)?

I plan to keep the current habits and patterns I am developing this week:

• Start my morning with a meditation and facial/scalp/shoulder massage
• Limit phone use to texting and calls, keep other technology needs to my laptop
• Reflect on what I’ve learned from documenting my time in “Finding Your Work-Life Mix” (no longer tracking)

But this coming week (January 13 - 19) I will:

• Focus on noticing colour, shapes, textures, emotions, and my own breathing out in the world
• Do something everyday to pay attention through my senses and imagination - sketch something, notice shapes and colours and sounds on my daily walk, read a poem (noticing words and language), among other things. I will write down my creative activities for my own record.

If this current/first week has been about breaking my technology habit, and reflecting on where my time goes and my focus lies, then next week is about building my sensory and imaginative capacities.

I’ll email again in a week with updates!

In technology-habit-breaking solidarity,

Julia

p.s. If you missed last week’s email where I explained what I’m doing this week (January 6 - 12), you can find it here.

Julia Gray, PhD

​Website | Instagram | LinkedIn​

• award-winning writer, researcher, teacher
• mentored hundreds of students & clients
• playwright, theatre creator
• chocolate devotee, Mum of 2, ex-bun-head

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