Survived the Sabbatical

Ok so sabbatical isn't the greatest word to describe my 2 week break from the computer, but it made for a catchy title. Anyway, God taught me a lot on my break. #1) How much I can get done when I am not sitting on my butt at the computer. #2) How much I rely on a computer for just about everything. #3) How much social stuff I miss when I am not on FB, but that I really can survive without knowing it all. #4) How I will be changing my computer usage in the future.
#1). Holy buckets! I spend way too much time on the computer. I knew this and knew this was why God put my little hiatus on my heart. I got so much accomplished in the 2 weeks I stayed away from my computer. I have kept my house much cleaner (most of the time), finished some projects that were put on the back burner and played so much more with my kids. It has been great and it will really make me think twice before I plop my butt down on the couch and spend an hour on the computer.
#2)When you are trying not to use something at all, you realize how much you really use it. I look everything up on the computer, I do most of my shopping on the computer, I use it during my quiet times to find definitions and some cross references, I use it for recipes, for banking, for communicating and just about everything else. I must confess. I could not stay completely away for 2 weeks. I did have to check email to keep up with groups I am in that do all their communicating via email and my Pampered Chef business. I also broke my code to do things that my husband asked me to do that required computer and a few other things that saved my family money and time that had time restraints on them. But as for frivolous computer usage and all FB (other than one time that I had to get a phone # off my inbox) I stayed away. But it was crazy how much, whenever I was done with one task and searching for the next to do, I would think "I'll go do a scrapbook page, or look at recipes on Pioneer Woman, or read up on some one's blog." So, when I couldn't do these things that didn't necessarily need to be done I was getting necessary stuff done.
#3) Man, I felt out of the loop for those weeks. I had no clue what friends were up to and what was going on in their lives, but you know what? I survived. It didn't really matter at all and I got to catch up when I saw them next. I have resolved to be on my FB account much less in the future, like only once or twice a day.
#4) I will be using the computer significantly less in the future. I think my little break has really showed my how much I over-used it before and will cause me to be more conscious of how much I use it from here on. I decided it would be a great idea to charge my laptop at night and unplug it in the morning. If I close it between uses the batter should last about an hour and a half. With all computer usage throughout the day, when the battery runs out, I am done. An hour and a half seems like tons of time on the computer and I hope that I don't even require that per day. But I like to scrapbook in the evening after the kids go to bed and that is computer time as well and can take quite a bit of time, so hopefully pre-bedtime usage is closer to 45 minutes.
We'll see how that idea works.