What I learned: My thoughts on my productivity in these tech-free hours: I'm still finding myself surprised that avoiding technology use for several hours a day doesn't put me behind & result in a long 'catch up' period after the kids go to bed at night to get everything done that I would have accomplished on my devices had I used them during those hours. I know I was "getting a lot done" on my phone & computer after school before I started this experiment -- (I admit, I still feel the pull to use some of my new found free time to respond to correspondence, or work on a project on my computer that I've been wanting to get done). But I've been surprised at how many tasks I'm actually getting done (things that are on my to do list) along with still having time to interact with my kids and sometimes just sit down and read a book or do something else for myself. And when the kids go to bed, and I pull out the phone, I am often surprised by how few texts & emails I actually received that afternoon, and how quickly I can respond to the important ones [hmm, maybe I am used to spending more time checking my texts & emails and responding to them regularly throughout the day than it would actually take to wait until the end of the day and check them all at once then respond to them]. And I have been pretty successful at keeping a sticky note and a pencil next to my charging cell phone on the counter in the afternoons, so I can jot down notes, reminders, calendar events, & grocery list items when I think of them -- and I think it may also be more time efficient to do it this way and then update the calendar & grocery list all at once in the evening, rather than taking the time to add each thing as it comes to mind throughout the day. I suppose this is all helping to prove to me that it really is true what they say: we think we can be more time efficient by multi-tasking, but really we can't -- we just end up either taking more time or we may compromise on the quality of the work when we split our attention between multiple tasks and try to fit more than one task into the time frame for one.
I can see that my experiment is potentially delaying some of my bigger computer projects somewhat (if I need to wait until the kids are gone at school the following day to spend an hour writing the annual family Christmas letter or working on translating a genealogy record, then it will get done the next day instead of now). But I haven't felt like this has really put me behind on anything important so far. Instead, I see myself 1. trying to prioritizing my time a little better during the rest of the day to get the important things that depend on technology use done while the kids are at school or after their bedtime, and 2. being ok with getting some things done the next day instead of 'right now.'
What we did: A friend gave us a poster with a Christmas tree that has a simple paper ornament to put up each day as we do the "Light the World" 25 days of Christmas initiative that our family has been participating in -- so anyway, each morning when we do it Michael has been taking a minute to cut out the paper ornament for the day so the kids can put it up. So I took a few minutes to cut out all the paper ornaments for the rest of the month so he wouldn't have to take that extra bit of time to do that each morning. Then I tidied up the downstairs of the house & read through our neighborhood magazine. The kids were all occupied with homework or gone doing their afternoon dog walking jobs, so I sat down and worked on a workbook for a few minutes until Elijah got home and I helped him finish up making the photo/video slideshow that he volunteered to make for tonight's scout court of honor. And then for our family night we all went and walked around a nearby neighborhood that's nicknamed "Christmas Card Lane" for all it's Christmas decorations and the life sized wooden "Christmas cards" many homes display in their front yards.
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| At Christmas Card Lane |
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