Wifi: breaking up is hard to do

[caption id="attachment_4583" align="aligncenter" width="540"] free wheelin' with no WiFi[/caption]

I have just come back from a week in Center Parcs in Sherwood Forest with no WiFi access for a week in the villa. *cue drum roll*

I SURVIVED.

Not only that, but I LIKED IT.

I loved being with the Minis for the week and just playing around -  we did swimming, bowling, water slides, bike trailers, Princess parties (them, not me but you never know...) and generally being-on-holiday-type-stuff.
Now, you remember last week I blogged about my quest to re-dress the balance in my life by dropping the Superwoman pressure? Well, I have progress to report.

On Monday before we left my body was so tired and my chronic fatigue so exacerbated that I only managed half of my Monday yoga class before leaving, shaking with sickness and exhaustion.

I left the class and swore to myself I would take this week to switch off. In my 7 years of self-employment I have never had a holiday (or hospital stay, my usual "holidays") without checking my emails constantly.
When I arrived at Center Parcs and realised we not only had no 3G but no WiFi on tap I was so relieved;  time to switch off!

I purposefully hid Sparrow (my email app) on my iPhone and switched off push notifications. I set my auto responder to give my VA's details in case anything was urgent, and buggered off into the forest.

Day 1 felt the longest; I have never left my emails on a Monday unchecked. By Tuesday I was noticeably more relaxed for not having the tether to my devices, and by Wednesday I felt 100% unplugged. I find that my constant notifications of Tweets, emails, G+ updates, Facebook updates, texts, calls, blah blah blah is all too much. And it can all wait.

A few bubbles of panic arose midweek when I imagined worse case scenarios, but I weighed up the unnecessary head space of checking emails constantly versus allowing Isabel to do her job and call if anything was urgent. Peace and quiet won, I managed to talks myself out of it again and went off for a swim.
By Thursday, as I sat in the lovely Aqua Sana Spa I made myself a pact:
I need to set boundaries for myself with constant connection.

The hard thing is that I love social media, Facebook and Twitter can often be lifelines if health dictates a spell at home, and I love gchat for water cooler chit chat.
But.....I cannot trust myself to not lose hours of time immersed in T'Internet, filling my brain with work that isn't urgent, or needless blogger rows and Twitter dramas.

It turns out that after 5 days the world didn't stop spinning by my lack of email interjection.

So, here is my self-imposed switch off ban:
No social media or work after 8pm
No emails on weekends.
I am marking out time specifically to delve into my Twitter time lines and to actively engage with blogs and other sites. I am earmarking time so don't just get lost in the labyrinthine mess of the Internet, when there is so much more to life.

I need to pace myself constantly with work, housework, the Minis, exercise and tasks in order to cope with endo and fatigue, so I am limiting the vacuous chasm of this, the web. I adore the online world, but no one ever wished they spent more time on Twitter on their death beds...did they?
Could you do the same? Do you find yourself sucked into hours of social mayhem when you could be reading a book, or enjoying something less switched on? Let me know.

My co-relaxer, Katie of Pouting in Heels, has also had a successful week doing the same and I am so proud! Read her progress here.