Les Grandes Vacances: a Digital Detox
A Self-Employed Creative’s Learnings from 10 Days Offline
In the spirit of 10 days camping in France in August, I took inspiration from Les Grandes Vacances while I was away. I deleted my social apps, chose not to buy a roaming data pack, and carried a pocket book and biro around with me (for the thoughts that would usually make me reach for my notes app). My business was effectively closed and my time was, in theory, my own.
Here’s the main takeaway I’ll keep with me as I ease back onto my hamster wheel.
(For context, I’m a self-employed graphic recorder, so some degree of online visibility is necessary, but maybe other creatives-slash-creators-through-necessity will find this useful.)
Truly unplugging takes time, but falling back into unhealthy habits can happen quickly, without us even noticing.
It took 3/4 days for the old impulse to pick up a device the moment my brain idles to fade; that’s almost half of my time away, in the middle of a pine forest, still flipping over a phone that’s basically just a clock. I didn’t exactly miss the LinkedIn posts or Instagram reels, I guess the neural pathway to a quick dopamine fix is just that hardwired.
At some point, I was able to sit with thoughts I’d normally Google, letting my own questions go unanswered. In quiet moments, I sketched what I saw and wrote down ideas to come back to. Most importantly, I built up the capacity to participate at length in my daughter’s stories and games — something I realise is as much to do with having an empty to-do list as a useless device, and can’t so easily be replicated when I’m responsible for running both a business and a house. Some treats are just for holidays, I suppose, like Orangina.
As we drove off the ferry at Dover, I semi-automatically re-downloaded socials ‘to get back into the work mindset’, and instantly lost 20 minutes of the journey scrolling, though I couldn’t recall a single piece of content I’d given my attention to. Had I learned nothing!? I realised that limiting the time I spend digitally tethered will take some daily mindfulness and boundaries, so here they are:
LinkedIn and Substack are now only ever accessed through my laptop. It’s easier to do what I came to do and leave this way, somehow.
Instagram only lives on my phone Tuesday-Thursday, in line with my 1/2 weekly posts. I get just over half the week seeing mostly real life faces, and thinking about my own life instead of a stranger’s. I honestly can’t believe what a difference this makes to my overall state of mind.
The pocket book continues to come with me everywhere. Often, when I unlock my phone, it’s with the initial intention of saving a thought or idea for later, but the notifications waiting make me forget it anyway. The pocket book gives me that space to get it down while it’s fresh, and I really think there’s nothing like the brain-to-hand connection of writing to make make a thought feel reel.
I could probably write a whole post on that last point, but for now, here’s a page I scribbled at a nature park, where I realised that really looking at and considering a view for some time like this, would mean so much more to me than a photo.