This weekend my phone was only used to take photos. I walked around my town taking in the sights and the sounds. I was able to have uninterrupted conversations with my daughter and partner as we spent the day together. I felt 100% at ease and it has done me the world of good.

Give Yourself the Time You Deserve

I have learned the importance of my time and to respect myself enough to reconnect with the time that is my own. This is the time when work doesn’t come into the equation. My new rules that allow me to do this include:

• Not checking my business email between the hours of 7pm and 9am Monday to Friday and not at all over the weekend
• Turning off the Wi-Fi and mobile network on my smartphone each time I leave my home to do a personal errand
• Ensuring I tackle one personal project or activity each week
• No longer working later than 8pm
• Saturday is a day off
• Making use of the ‘Do Not Disturb’ function on my Kindle Fire HDX and HTC One

I love my smartphone  but over the past couple of years I have become a slave to it. Before I made the concious effort to really relax and embrace my downtime my phone was constantly connected either to Wi-Fi or 4G. I could be standing in a queue waiting to pay for a bunch of bananas and my emails would reach me, or updates from Facebook, Twitter or one of the other social networks would alert me to take immediate action.

I found myself replying to client’s emails when I should have been concentrating only on helping my daughter with her homework or while sipping from a glass of wine on a Friday night.  I would awake and check my emails first thing in the morning, or be awoken to the sound of an email arriving in my inbox at 2am from a client from Hong Kong. As a result I never truly turned off, my stress levels were unable to even out, not good news for anyone.

I challenge you to reconnect with your personal time, especially if you’re self-employed. Just because we can stay connected to all aspects of our lives around the clock doesn’t mean we should.

All photos taken by me on my HTC One.