Why You Should Try a Tech-Free Morning — Part 1

Bill Tribble
Saving the World
Published in
10 min readNov 1, 2016

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Tokashiki island, Okinawa. 27/10/2016

A Tech Free Morning? How could I manage that? I have way too many emails to catch up on, too many notifications on my phone!

Hear me out, it’s easier than it sounds — and the benefits are awesome. First of all, to precise, they are really ‘tech-free early mornings’. I’ve been making a conscious effort to disconnect (or perhaps, ‘stay disconnected’) — from when I wake up, till when I start working or commuting.

What this means is no connected devices — no phones, notifications, messages, social media, or any of my fun, modern distractions, while I get some ‘real life’ done. I also follow a loose routine with a few parts to it — but more on that later.

Before I go into the details, I want to say that the morning bit is not even necessary! I might have focused on the evenings if I didn’t have a kid, but mornings make more sense right as it really is ‘free time’, without any distractions. I don’t think this is necessarily better than any other time of day, or any other routine – it’s just what works for me right now. I really think there are only two important parts to the whole thing — if you skip the rest of the article, just consider these:

  1. Disconnection from the internet
  2. Focused, intentional work, play or whatever you like.

If you get just those done — anywhere, anytime, you’ll get some great results. Which brings me neatly to:

The results

Wow. I could go on about this for a while. Overall, I’ve just felt way better. I’ve been more together, I’ve learnt more about myself, and I’ve gotten on better with the people around me. Work has felt easier, and I’ve found more space for creative projects. Not to say that I suddenly have no problems, or every relationship is smooth — far from it. But I know how much worse things could have been, from experience!

Every time I’ve ‘fallen off the wagon’, a Socrates quote starts haunting me:

“The unexamined life is not worth living”

It’s a bit of a strong statement — and it’s probably not true! But for whatever reason — the quote, or the feeling that I get around it, drives me back to this routine.

Without it, I get stressed out, feel ‘disconnected’, and anxious about what I’m doing and where I’m going.

With it, I feel like I have some agency back in my life. I’ve been reading Nicholas Carr’s ‘The Shallows’ recently — and it’s been blowing my mind, confirming so many feelings I’ve had over the years about networked computers. As Cory Doctorow puts it, they really are ‘engines of distraction’ — getting meaningful thinking and creative work done on them is a real challenge, as you’re never more than a gesture away from an endless 'magazine' of bite-sized junk-food for your brain.

By disconnecting, for even just a short period of the day, with a focused mind, I get a chance to clearly assess and clarify how I’m feeling, what’s most important to me right now, what my long-term goals are, and what to do next.

Without it, I’m plunged back into the endless, reactive stream of notifications and ‘email as a task-list’, that pretty much ruins my chances of getting anything meaningful done.

It’s a first step towards something I’m starting to think of as ‘conscious computing’ — a way to get the benefits of information technology, while avoiding some of the downsides.

What got me started?

It was a while ago that my pal Jack Bush mentioned he was keeping his phone in flight mode most of the time. Initially I found this annoying, as it occasionally made it hard to get in touch with him — but I started to wonder if he had a point. The constant stream of notifications that emerge from the average smartphone is a serious distraction. Right now I can see mine on the table, tempting me to check ‘what happened on the internet just now’ like a high-pitched cartoon devil.

Around the same time, through their excellent work on Design Sprints I started getting into the work of Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky — who are also run the excellent Time Dorks blog. Their writing — especially an article on stripping out all the distracting apps from an iPhone, got me thinking more about the way I use technology, and the problems it creates.

I’d been really sceptical about the work of Nicholas Carr, but I began to look at it in a new light — was the internet really making me dumber, less productive? I also thought back to the work of Douglas Rushkoff, especially his thoughts on ‘constant connection' in Program or be Programmed.

I’ve always been into the idea of being constantly online, digitally connected to the World around me. But I began to realise more deeply that this connection came at a cost. I felt like the twin pressures of work and family life were turning me into some kind of automaton, always chasing my tail under a barrage of notifications and commitments. Something had to be done.

In my work as a designer, I’ve long been an advocate of getting off the damn computer and sketching on paper, working on the walls with post-its, whiteboards and flipcharts. I’ve seen the improvement in thinking, questions and solutions generated by the process over many years — and long enjoyed the results.

But this intentional, forced disconnection was quite another angle — something that would require commitment, dedication, and focus to achieve. Productive time, without distractions. Maybe even some of the ‘Flow’ described by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi? It sounded worth giving a go — it felt like perhaps I could get some of my life back!

Finally, my friend Matia Gobbo’s “My Tech Free Evenings” experiment prompted me to write this post. You’ve made it this far — welcome to the journey!

I had to buy some stuff

I actually had to buy more technology to make this work! But nothing complicated — just a simple alarm clock.

Why buy an alarm clock in 2016

I know what you’re thinking – alarm clocks are obsolete! I have a smartphone!

That’s exactly why you need an alarm clock. Using one means I can keep my phone on the other side of the room, and I have no chance at all of getting sucked into a clickhole by a notification or a stray thought.

I was sceptical about this for years till I went and tried it. What a relief to no longer have the temptation! Now my phone is no longer the first thing I touch in the morning – it’s a simple alarm clock. I keep the clarity I just gained from sleep, and don’t waste a single brain cycle on trivia, leaving me free to figure out what really matters to me right now.

Lexon InOut clock

I bought this Lexon InOut clock because I’m a sucker for neat designs. What I really wanted was something with nice alarm sounds, but it seems there’s really no market for them right now! I mean seriously, in 2016 I have to put up with an annoying beep. But hey, after hunting around for weeks I just gave up and bought the best looking thing I could find in Magma. The popup alarm thing is neat.

Living in the 80's

Casio DB 360

Secondly, just kind of a preference this, but I use a digital watch to time meditation. My Casio DB 360 is totally dorky and has the advantage of no wireless connectivity! But what I like about it is the fact it has a ‘countdown’ timer and up / down buttons. This is so handy for setting time quickly!

On a side note — why are Casio still stuck in the 80's? Did they somehow order too many of the same microchips back then? It’s really weird — I feel like so much progress should have been made!

The routine

Prerequisite: Go to bed

The most important thing I’ve found for getting any of this done is getting to bed early enough! I aim for at least 11pm, but 10pm is better. Reading stories to my 5-year old son sure helps! That often gets me to sleep by 9pm. This is to me a massive advantage — I find I’m way more productive in the mornings. Night time for me is so often a kind of brain-dead lull — my self-discipline goes way down and I end up watching or reading any old stuff (though it’s fascinating at the time)- and feel like kicking myself later. Even if I get busy with a creative project, I often find myself down a rabbit-hole without realising it and look back at the work unhappily the next day.

I’ve never found getting to bed early easy, but now I’ve established a routine with it, I tempt myself with the amazing time I’m going to have in the morning! So, once I’ve managed that, here’s what my morning routine looks like on a good day:

Number zero: Wake up. This one is the only essential to getting access to this amazing productive time of day! The exact time I get up depends on when I managed to get to bed. I find I need at least 7 hours sleep, so on a good day this is maybe 5am. My 5-year old son doesn’t wake up usually till about 7am, so I get 2 hours straight to play with!

  1. Stretches — the next few sections sometimes get ditched or switched around depending on how I’m feeling, but if I have time to do the lot, I’ll usually start with some stretching. I’d call this section ‘yoga’, as that’s where I learnt most what I do, but I also learnt some of it from Pilates. Anyway, I spend about 5–15 minutes doing a few simple stretches that help me limber up and feel less stiff for the rest of the day.
  2. Meditation — I then spend between 5 and 40 minutes meditating, most often about 30 minutes. I won’t go into the details here, but it’s a great ‘flow hack’ as Jason Silva might say, and usually leaves me feeling more clear-headed, balanced and creative. Amazingly, the effects tend to last most of the day too! Can’t recommend it enough.
  3. Journalling — Finally, I spend about 10 minutes writing a journal. This tends to be a bit of a brain-dump — ideas I just had, things that have been bugging me, things I need to sort out. When I initially started making time in the mornings to get stuff done, this is what I started with. It was a really low-cost way to give myself some space to start working out where I was, and where I wanted to be. Again, can’t say enough good things about it! It’s really changed my life.

Downsides

Getting such an early night can obviously be a bit anti-social! Also, if I skip it and go out for an evening, it derails the routine and it can take a day or two to get back into it. But like I mentioned, early-mornings are really the only time I can find right now to disconnect, and have the space and mind to do anything useful!

Wrapping up

I don’t think any of the stretching, meditation or journaling are essential to getting a real boost in productivity. The most important thing is probably just getting offline, and getting something you really care about done. Right now for me, this means getting up early.

Although I long thought of myself as a night-Owl, I’ve found myself way more together, and just way more useful straight after a good night’s sleep, and uninterrupted by networked technology. My mind works quickly, with a clarity that I never find at night – and I’m easily able to skip the crap and get right to the work that counts.

I hope this is useful to you in figuring out your own routine and pursuing your creativity! Please recommend the article or drop me a line if so! Interested in the specifics of a tech-free morning routine?

Read the follow up here: Why You Should Try a Tech-Free Morning — Part 2

Links

In the spirit of conscious computing, I’ve left all these to the end, so you had some chance of reading the article and comprehending it — without all those choices and clicks to distract you. If you skipped forward here already — Welcome, internet reader!

Matia Gobbo’s excellent ‘My Tech Free Evenings” experiment -http://www.mytechfreeevenings.com. Also, the Facebook Group

Jack Bush — my pal who keeps his phone in flight-mode half the time.

Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky — the Google Ventures design experts, who also run the excellent Time Dorks blog.

Knapp’s ‘Distraction Free iPhone’ article

Nicholas Carr — author of ‘The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

douglas rushkoff — author of Program or be Programmed

Mihály Csíkszentmihályi — author of Flow — https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66354.Flow

Jason Silva — this is a good talk featuring him and Steven Kotler

Finally

Oh look! I discovered ‘conscious computing’ is already a thing! — https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/may/10/conscious-computing-twitter-facebook-google

Part 2

Interested in the specifics of a tech-free morning routine?

Read the follow up here: Why You Should Try a Tech-Free Morning – Part 2

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