This Week I "Unplug"

This week I am relaxing on vacation. The beach and ocean are doubling as my front yard. My wife, kids, parents, sisters, nieces and nephews are all my family for the week. The count in the house is 20. Yes, 20! We all get along, because we all want to have a great time. The rules are easy. Be safe. Have fun. Each day brings a mix of us reading, watching movies, swimming in the pool, kayaking in the ocean, relaxing on the beach and on the deck, playing cornhole, ping pong or frisbee. We all do our own thing throughout the day, yet we all converge together for game night. Every night. Tonight we are playing “Warewolf”. At 9pm, my sister yells “Warewolf!” and we all run downstairs to the large formica table that has enough chairs for all twenty of us. Last night we played “Family Fued” and tomorrow we have planned a “Treasure Hunt”. The bottom line is, we enjoy each others company. Game night is a time when we all twenty of us leave our electronic devices far away from the table. We listen, laugh, and talk with each other.

Most of us keep our phones and other electronic devices in our rooms, checking them once or twice a day. Others, like our teenage kids, use them a little more frequently. But we all unplug for a good majority of the day. It’s our vacation from the everyday distractions of the world we live in today.

This week, I have also made it a point to leave my phone in my room. Even though I am only checking my emails once a day, it feels like I’m “unplugged”. I can still respond to any urgent messages, but I have the “choice” to respond to the rest of them. In today’s world, it’s easy to say everything is urgent and important. We are all fighting for attention on social media, in emails, and on the phone. This week I scale it waaaaaay back, and relax. That’s what vacation is all about. Try “unplugging” a little on your vacation this summer and watch the magic unfold.

As a Professional Organizer, Speaker, Author, Podcast Producer & Host, Rick Woods helps residents and businesses make room for clarity, by getting rid of the clutter that gets in their way.

Listen to Rick's free weekly podcast "Make Room For Clarity", which focuses on interviewing business & health experts by visiting www.makeroomforclarity.com.

Inquire about Rick's professional organizing business, "The Functional Organizer, LLC.", which focuses on decluttering, organizing, paper filing and time management by visiting www.tforganizer.com.