Advent Unplugged Wrap Up (Link Up)

This year I tried to do some intentional social media unplugging during Advent and lots of other folks joined me. You can read about it in the original post and the updates for Week 1 and Week 2.

Advent is coming to a close and Christmas is almost here! Take a few moments before Wednesday and reflect on this season of Advent. Here’s a few things I’m taking away from this season and I can’t wait to hear about what you learned (you can link up your Advent Unplugged posts below!):

I’m never adding the Facebook app back to my phone. OK, maybe never is a strong word, but I can’t think of any reason in the foreseeable future that I would want it back. (Except perhaps if we’re blessed with another pregnancy and I’m as sick as I was last time and end up using my phone as a distraction while I’m in bed sipping ginger ale.) But, seriously, if you haven’t tried life without the FB app, give it a try. I was far less addicted to my phone and it was great. Before I removed the app I thought, “Yikes! What if there’s some kind of EMERGENCY in which I REALLY need the FB app.” But then I realized that scenario was ridiculous. And needless to say, I never needed the app. I will probably add the Twitter app back on because I find it so much easier to use than accessing the site on my laptop and Twitter simply isn’t a distraction the way FB is for me. I don’t enjoy being on it and it doesn’t tempt me.

I learned a lot about what I’m like when my laptop is open versus what I’m like when it’s closed. I had no idea how distracting the open laptop was during the day until I tried to unplug. Now in full disclosure, I definitely did NOT succeed in only using the laptop when my kids were asleep. But I did cut down on computer use during the day and at the very least, became aware of how distracting it is. Because the heart of the matter is, if I’m reading an interesting article that a friend posted on FB and one of my kids asks me a question, I view their question as an interruption, when in actuality, it’s FB that’s interrupting my day with my children. And when I remove the constant interruption of social media, hello productivity! My house was cleaner and I enjoyed my awesome kids more because I started viewing them as the center of my day and everything else as an interruption.

Unplugging provides mental quiet to my days. I’m an extrovert, so I don’t need that much quiet alone time, but the buzzing of social media really starts to overwhelm me and muddles my inner thoughts and reflections.

One thing I didn’t do well at was taking time to do some Advent reading. It just didn’t happen this year. And we didn’t do a Jesse Tree. And the list of thing we didn’t do goes on and on. But, as we look ahead to Christmas, just a couple of days away, we’re not frazzled, stressed out, or burnt out, so I call that a win. We left margins to our days so even minor complications aren’t enough to throw everything off. We’re all excited about Christmas and except for watching Elf on Friday, we really have saved the fun Christmas stuff for Christmastide. If you’re looking for me from December 25th-January 5th, I’ll be the girl blaring Sufjan Stevens Christmas albums ad nauseum until Daniel begs for mercy.

How did your Advent Unplugged turn out? What did you learn? What would you do differently? 

To participate in the link up:

1. Write an Advent Unplugged post.

2. Add the Advent Unplugged button.

<a href=”http://carrotsformichaelmas.com/2013/11/24advent-unplugged-a-link-up/” title=”Carrots for Michaelmas”><img src=”http://carrotsformichaelmas.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/AdventUnplugged-1024×764.jpg” alt=”AdventUnplugged” /></a>

3. Link up below!