Untether Your Life: 4 Easy Steps to Digital Zen

This post originally appeared on WomenBusinessExperts.com.

We interrupt this program to glance down at our smartphone to see if we have an email message or notification.

You think I’m kidding. I am now eating my words from the 1990s when I mocked the media for saying that people were going to get “addicted” to the Internet.

We are overwhelmed. A short manifesto

Our cup is too full. We need to disconnect to reconnect.

As Cybergrrl, I spent the early 90s telling people they should “Get Online!” More recently, while promoting my 10th book, Social Media Engagement for Dummies, I wanted to talk about the tech elephant in the room: that a big challenge we all face engaging people through social media is that everyone is overloaded, bombarded by information and ads and pummeled by constant, ubiquitous social media news feeds.

10 Easy Steps To Unplugging

The hardest part of taking a break from our personal technology – our gadgets and screens and the social networks that beckon us – is just doing it without all the fears and anxiety that comes with shutting off our smartphones or (gasp!) leaving them behind when we go out. We rationalize that we need this connectivity, that without it, we might miss out on something important or (shock! horror!) be lost or lonely.

The Disconnecting Dilemma

January 1, 2014. Stream of conscious musings. First journal entry after years of not journaling…

Trying to cram all kinds of productivity and creativity and exercise into this first day of 2014. Like setting a precedent for high achievement because I can’t seem to let go of doing. If this is the Year of Unplugging, I’ve failed today’s test. On the computer by 7:00 a.m.; cleared my InBoxes; worked; tweeted; read; responded.

The #Unplug Movement

I’ve been talking about “Manageable Tech” for a while now. A few years ago, I even started a podcast and a book project about the topic called Zen of Being Digital. Back then, I couldn’t get a publisher interested in the book because social media marketing books were all the rage. A book about simplifying tech, paring down, unplugging or taking a break? Blasphemy!