Someone asked me about how I communicate if I don’t participate in Facebook and other major social media sites. They’re having major stress about not having it because it is a major part of their life. For those people, I get it, it feels like cutting a life line. I can’t even tell you this is the solution. All I know is I can only talk about what works for me and has been successful for me.
Well, I’ll answer that question. On a daily basis this is what I use:
-Telephone. Yup, I like conversing with people. Most of my business is done on the phone. Most of the people in my life I deal with by phone. I won’t work with someone without speaking with them on the phone. Voice communication cuts the bullshit, clears the air, and avoids misunderstandings and unnecessary drama.
-E-mail. Old school and it works. I try to keep my communications brief and not overload people. I filter email lists to folders and keep my main feed pretty light. This is still my preferred method of staying in contact. I also like that no one “owns” email. It’s an original internet technology that I think is worth saving.
-iMessage/text message. This is how I communicate with my handful of close friends for non-important stuff. I don’t have a huge list. My phone does not alert me to new messages other than a badge icon that I’ll spot whenever I’m looking at my phone.
-This blog. I own it. No one scrapes data from it. People need to make an effort to read it and that is fine by me.
-Recently I joined a Slack channel for a program I’m participating in. It’s my first Slack experience. I’ve resisted until now because I really enjoy my decelerated life. My solution is this: All notifications are turned off and I check it once per day in the morning. Once I’m done with it, I won’t be back for 24 hours.
-I get my news and interest stories from visiting actual websites that I’ve book marked. It isn’t curated for me. I visit the individual pages when I want to do my reading.
I should state that none of these methods ping or alert me at any time. Even my phone ringer is off a good part of the day unless I’m expecting a call. I’ll check my emails as I desire, same goes for text messages. Everyone who knows me knows I am not in constant communication and not to expect quick responses, and that is OK. As I’ve written in the past, there is no such thing as a true emergency, so I treat nothing as it can be. Everything will be ok.
I acknowledge that what I do is outside “normal” in the year 2020. But again, I always try to look for what everyone else is not doing, and do that instead. It works for me and I’m pretty happy with the technology balance in my life and the time it gives me to focus on really beneficial things.
Had I read your blog post six months ago my thoughts would be very different. Six months ago my Iphone screen was flawless and functions intact. I was hooked up (sounds like The Matrix) across platforms; email, ZOOM, WebEx, WhatsApp, WeChat, SnapChat. Why? Convenience of course. So I could work fro anywhere, anytime and that’s a pretty big deal for me as I travel internationally…or so I thought. The bigger reason was “in case my kiddos needed to get a hold of me in case of an emergency”. I wanted all channels open all the time. I wanted them to know “I was there for them unconditionally”.
All that changed as my Iphone hit the pavement while rushing for quick visit to see my daughter at university. I learned it would take a couple of weeks to fix the phone and I would use a borrower phone i the mean time. Drat! I was heading out to a trip to India at the time and knew it would translate to more than a month and then figuring out how to hook all the Apps (or me to the Apps) again. One thing led to another, the Cloud back up was incomplete, the GoDaddy Office 365 Exchange Account was having problems and without intentionally choosing it my new Iphone replacement was oddly quiet. I didn’t notice the difference it was making to my daily routine at first. I was more focused on how to “fix it”.
After returning form India and settling in back home a sunny day appeared inside a string of cloudy wet days and I grabbed the opportunity for a hike in the forest near my home. No worries this forest is within cell phone range! This is when I noticed the difference not having my platforms tied in was making a difference… I heard the birds. I mean 1 REALLY heard the birds and I was SURPRISED. I thought they had disappeared already. All this time I had already been living daily life in some illusionary future where all birds had gone extinct. I walked for hours in what seemed like some remote paradise in some crack of the planet where all wild things were still alive and thriving. When I came home I FELT like I had returned from a two week vacation, free, breathing, smiling, hiking boots muddy.
I’ve loaded the Apps back on my phone except email. All notices are OFF. Yes, I’m a paranoid mother.
I’m back in India at the moment on another business trip. The carnivorous is shutting down businesses, airports and countries. Just this morning my daughter and son both contacted me about important life events. My daughter is disconnected from her own life and happiness at the university and wants to leave. My son is getting deep into a relationship he’s not ready to commit to. Both of them had contacted by text.
I thought about that for a while and then asked myself, “How do we CONNECT when we’re apart? Face Time and Text. We co-create and edit school papers on Google Docs and FaceTime simultaneously and I absolutely LOVE that! Everything else was “check ins”.
So there it is. I’m hanging out with birds these days. Family check-ins are group family texts but fewer. Social media connection are less of an unconscious choice delivered by the urgency to “connect or loose out on opportunities” to serving what is most rich and meaningful to my thriving life, including business. I turned out real business was arriving by email this whole time.
Hi Amy, welcome to the blog :). Thanks for sharing that.