Home Holiday

Happy Easter everyone!

Beardie and I are taking a week off and really want to make it feel like a holiday… which is easier said than done at the moment.

So how do you take a “proper” break when you’re not going anywhere or doing anything? In the past I’ve benefited from having something to switch off or close the door on in order to get into holiday mode. That used to mean switching off my work phone and putting my email on out of office. Then when I became self employed it was shutting my studio door and switching off my personal mobile for ultimate off-grid time.

I no longer have a fixed studio space as that room has been Beardie’s temporary office over the last year. I work sporadically wherever I’m sitting so I can’t shut the door on that!

I haven’t switched my phone off for a full week since a holiday in September 2019. I’m increasingly feeling like I don’t want to be off the radar for long periods of time - partly in case there’s an emergency, but largely because my main contact with family and friends over the last year has been via my phone and I want to feel connected.

So I’m planning to experiment with going half-off-grid!

I’ve been using a monitoring app to see how much time I’m spending on my phone and encourage myself to limit it. The app mostly just makes me feel guilty about how much time I spend on my phone! I’m finding that limiting my overall phone time isn’t helpful because I might have spent lots of time working, exchanging cat memes with friends and watching live video from our hedgehog box… and all of those things are excellent uses of my time.

However - if I’ve spent lots of time reading the news and mindlessly scrolling Instagram, I’m generally left feeling quite negative and like I’ve wasted time. That’s something that I want to avoid during our home holiday.

I know that in theory the solution is to just not look at the news and Instagram! But that involves willpower and I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a little bit addicted to Instagram. Social media apps are built to be addictive (have you seen the Social Dilemma? It’s terrifying and will make you want to throw away your phone).

I’ve discovered that my monitoring app allows me to set a time limit for specific apps and when you reach the time limit you’re blocked for the rest of the day. I’ve been limiting my Instagram time already and will be setting that and my search engine to just a few minutes per day while we’re on “holiday”. If I really need to search something I can get my laptop out.

I’m really looking forward to being a bit off-grid for the week, going for lots of local walks, making grazing platters instead of cooking proper meals and maybe doing a bit of sewing if I’m in the mood.

Do you have any tricks for switching to holiday mode when you’re not going anywhere?