Change is good

One of the things I hate about travelling is that moment when the plane is taxiing towards the runway. This is the moment when all communication with the rest of the world stops. You shut off your mobile phone and you know that you're basically in a quarantine for the next 10 hours or so. Nobody will be able to reach you and you won't be able to reach anyone. This is like a 180 degree turn from my normal always-connected life.

At the same time, once I've gotten over that initial feeling of helplessness that's incurred by this radio silence, I kind of enjoy it. You can't use your mobile phone, you can't use the internet (well, you could on SAS flights up until about a year ago when they discontinued the service), so you have no means of communicating with people not on the same flight as you. While it's at times somewhat annoying, it's also a feeling of freedom. You won't get bothered, you won't bother others, and you won't waste time surfing the web. This is a very big change.

Change is in many ways good. It can put perspective on things and force you do act differently. That's one of the reasons I've decided to force with change onto me. Once a week, every Saturday to be precise, I'll have my mobile phone turned off. I see this as part of my goal to improve my quality of life, starting with my new work plan. The "rules" I'll be following, as of now, is that every Friday night when I go to sleep I'll turn off my mobile phone and will not turn it on again until Saturday evening (no earlier than 18.00). I doubt that this will affect my social life in any real way. If people want to reach me they will anyway (email, IM, land-line phone, knock on door, etc).

The long-term plan for this is to move on to not allowing myself to even use a computer during this time, but I think I need to take this one step at a time. Not using a mobile phone nor a computer would leave me rather isolated during this time. It's the same kind of freedom that you experience on a long flight. The only real difference is that I'm free to do anything, compared to the rather limited options you have onboard a plane. I'm guessing that I'll focus more on meeting people (I just need to coordinate it all the day before), reading, and doing more practical things (compared to just sitting with a laptop in my lap). It's possible that this will improve my quality of life, as it forces me to break the normal patterns.

You may very well ask why I'll be doing this. I see this is a very minor form of lifestyle experiments. I'm definitely not prepared to go for something like Radical Honesty or living biblically for a year. This is more along the lines of proving to myself that I'm able to change my life and my habits - designing my life if you will. Will it actually improve my quality of life? I don't know, but I'm intrigued by the actual change. Let's just see if it's possible...

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Update on my work plan: Today I only went through my inbox (and emptied it) twice, and had three meetings. That means 7 more meetings this week.