The following is an excerpt from a presentation that I was working on regarding the importance of unplugging from technology. I owe huge thanks to my friend Roger who stepped in at the last minute to do this presentation using my material (and made it better I’m sure) since I was unable to attend the retreat. And I will soon be returning to my regularly scheduled blog programming on technical tips – I’m just catching up on some other topics here for a little bit.
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I’m a geek, to express this in the context I submit the following: “If anyone else thinks that he has reasons to embrace technology, I have more: programming by the eighth year, technologist as a profession, of the tribe of Microsoft, a geek of geeks. In regard to technology a self-proclaimed alpha-geek, as for zeal substituted coffee for sleep, as for love of geek toys, faultless.”
So I love technology – don’t get me wrong. But I have come to realize that we all need to unplug once in a while.
Top-10: How to tell if you may need to unplug? [I can say these because I have done most of these]
10) If you recently booked a meeting for a nap or a night’s sleep so that nobody could put another meeting there. – [You might need to unplug]
9) You open your email, find nothing unread so you file a helpdesk ticket because email must be broken. – [You might need to unplug]
8) You have cold sweats at the idea of what will happen if you change your instant message status from busy to available. – [You might need to unplug]
7) The last thing you do before bed and when you wake up is to read your email or check facebook. – [You might need to unplug]
6) You read your email on your phone – when you are out on a date night. – [You might need to unplug]
5) Your internet connection at homes goes down and every member of your family asks you why. – [You might need to unplug]
4) You reply to text or email messages on the tollway at 70 miles+ an hour and your pastor compliments you on how quickly you reply to email. – [You might need to unplug]
3) You have experienced withdrawal from email. – [You might need to unplug]
2) If you are texting or emailing while sitting with your family – during Church service. – [You might need to unplug]
1) If you know of a funnier one that should be on this list that I didn’t mention – you may need to unplug for a while. [after you submit the comment to this blog 
]
I’m going to go and unplug and unwind for a bit. Have a great weekend!
Additional readings on this topic:
Reading your blog post on the couch while watching TV during my vacation and responding to this post – I might unplug now!
I too am guilty of reading tweets then finding this post while on holiday! It is sound advice, we can short-circuit if left plugged in permanently.