This is a tale of a “forced” 24-hours offline that I recently enjoyed as part of the National Day of Unplugging, which occurred March 1-2, 2013. It was sponsored by a Jewish technology community called Reboot, which asked you to pledge to go off the grid from sunset Friday until sunset Saturday. Here is my story.
I quickly typed my last tweets, and made my final Facebook posts as the sun was setting around 6PM PST on Friday, March 1. I then pivoted to participate in family activities, and it was to bed early for a full-day of family skiing at the Summit at Snoqualmie (just above Seattle).
The next morning, I rose at 4 AM so we could catch the first ferry from Bainbridge Island to Seattle. This is necessary because my two boys are professional ski instructors and must report for duty around 8 AM. Needless to say, we’re there for “first run.” During the course of the day, I enjoyed skiing 25K XC (man that’s hard!) followed by 10+ downhill ski runs at Alpental. Throw in a little bit of après ski at the outside base fire pit at the ski lodge and, before you knew it, the Saturday sunset arrived, and I was able to get back on the grid.
What I found was that I survived 24 hours offline! I will repeat. It was fun, and I encourage you to join me next year!
Kudos to Reboot for hosting this annual event (which I predict will blossom to be as large as “Small Business Saturday” the day after Black Friday and started by American Express). Learn more here.
