# This past week I have deliberately and drastically reduced my phone usage; there have even been times when I haven't carried it.
It felt strange at first but then it became liberating.
I've always been the kind of person that sees a woman wrestling to find her phone in the bottom of her handbag and think "why haven't you got it to hand, what use is it in there?"
But I think I realise that it's a way to separate oneself from it, to not be so reliant that one can just put it away. And that's what I've tried to do.
I restricted the notifications even beyond what I already had and just put the damn thing down somewhere rather than have it always in my pocket.
Post have remained unwritten, RSS feeds unread, podcasts unheard. And it's been great!
Writing this almost feels like a betrayal.
Comments
Making changes
I've been doing some thinking - I know, always dangerous.
Returning to pen and paper on the way to work this morning I started making a few notes in response to James' post and extrapolated somewhat to the point where I set some things in motion internally. I think they're continuations of how I've been thinking and feeling for a while but have coalesced into something more solid.
Being largely offline for a number of days felt right, it felt like how I need to be at the moment. So I'm going to be stepping back.
I'm not going to be blogging much - maybe the occasional post but nothing regular. I'm going to remove my feed from micro.blog for the time being so that I'm not drawn into conversations there that might result from any posts - if any conversations occur they will have to happen locally, for now.
That isn't a reflection on Manton and the micro.blog service, I still think he is doing a wonderful job and it keeps going from strength to strength, it's just not somewhere I need to be at the moment and something I need to do for me.
There are a couple of things I want to work on offline/elsewhere (I'm not ready/willing to announce them yet) and I don't think they'll happen unless I push back.
I don't know how long it will take or even if this might ultimately become a permanent thing - I don't envisage it but then you never know.
What I will be doing is responding to email and nurturing one-to-one relationships in this way. If you want to get/keep in touch please do using colin@colinwalker.blog.
See you on the other side.
@colinwalker there's something to be said for being disconnected. Or maybe just carrying a dumb phone every now and again.
@colinwalker What we believe in.
It goes deeper...