Look outside of your screen

Offline is the new luxury

If we constantly look at our smartphone-screen, we might miss so many beautiful things around us. Sometimes we forget that the time we spend on our phone could also have been used for so many more fun things. 

We’re used to grabbing our phone on every moment we don’t having anything to do. What else could you have done in that time? For our Social Detox Week, we’d like to make a few suggestions. Also fun: make a check off-list of the ideas below. Which of these things have you done lately? Which ones do you still want to do?

  • Play music
  • Finish reading an article in one sitting, without any interruptions
  • Daydream
  • Play a board game
  • Go for a walk
  • Pet the cat
  • Take your time preparing a meal
  • Take an art book off the shelf and leaf through it
  • Take photos with your analog camera
  • Leaf through an old photo album
  • Press flowers
  • Cut a stamp out of an eraser
  • Feel bored (and therefore come up with new ideas for things to do)
  • Call a family member for a nice long chat
  • Make your own jam
  • Take your time watering the plants
  • Reread old comic books
  • Hang the washing up to dry instead of throwing it in the clothes dryer
  • Look up a delicious recipe in a cookbook
  • Call someone instead of messaging them

 

  • We’re having a Social Detox Week on the blog. See all tips and blogs about using your phone less here.
  • Flow introduced a Social Out of Office to let people on social media know you’re temporarily unavailable. Do you want to know how you can use it? Go to Flowmagazine.com/socialooo.
  • These ideas can also be found in the ‘7 days offline-project’ booklet in Issue 16.

Illustration Oana Beffort