Le Chic Geek
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This past summer, I took a cruise that had a few days out at sea. Â What that meant for me was no cell service.
And as a compulsive Tweeter, a total shock to how I work.
As the ship pulled away from the shore, my cell phone signal got weaker and weaker, until my tweets stopped sending.
We had two days before we would hit land again. Â Two days before I had a cell signal!
The first day wasn’t so bad. Â I got super involved in things on the ship.
I even entered a bartending competition.
But by the end of the day, I was starting to miss my online peeps. Â The next day it got a bit worse. Â I started participating more and more, trying to make up for it.
My low point was Bingo. Â (Actually, it wasn’t. Â It was pretty fun).
While on the ship, I knew I was going to need the internet to check my email occasionally for work. Â Because it was so expensive, I’d log in, download all my email, log off, respond, then log in again.
I finally broke down and started logging into the service on my cell phone. Â I’d take photos with it offline, then log in to update my different social media accounts, and then log off. Â I’d pop back later to respond to any comments. Â (Note: Â Carnival is rolling out cheap social media packages to different ships, but my ship did not have it yet).
I’d say I logged in to post about 8 times a day.
This is still an improvement over my usual self, but I still couldn’t totally disconnect. Â The thing is, being connected made me able to relax more.
How about you? Â Are you able to disconnect completely? Â Do you think you need to in order to enjoy a vacation.
Last time I was in Hawaii, I completely disconnected while laying out by the pool. I left my phone in the hotel room & only checked email/social media 1-2 time each day – once in the morning and once in the evening.
Jeanne, you only thought being connected helped you relax more because you didn’t allow yourself enough time for your brain to slow down and cleanse itself of the need for constant stimulation. You will find that after a couple of days without you will truly relax. Sit there and read a book, lay in the sun and reconnect with your own thoughts and you will feel much more relaxed.