The Global Day of Unplugging is a Sabbath-inspired event that encourages people to get offline for 24 hours. It’s flexible, so you can adapt the idea to your needs (and it’s not like any Unplugging Day enforcer is going to knock on your door, anyway — the organizers even say that one hour of unplugging is better than none).

I think the problem with some of the messaging around days like these (and largely from people mentioning it, not the official website itself) is that it seems Prescriptive and Scary.

What if someone needs to reach you but you’ve turned everything off?

What do you mean “tell everyone you’re going offline,” that feels uncomfortable!

All of my books are digital, am I not supposed to read??

But the beauty of it is you can truly make a day of unplugging into something that works for you. You might even find that you like doing it longer-term.

I plan to focus my own Day of Unplugging on removing tech that controls what I see.

This means that if it can serve me ads or change the flow of how I use the tech through its screens and prompts, it’s out for the day. The parameters I’m setting for myself are:

1. No iPhones or iPads outside of the parameters on this list. (I will allow myself to stream workout content via the web browser on my computer — not via YouTube but through Move Fitness and Inner Dimension.)
2. Set two times a day where I can check my phone for messages and calls: noon and around dinnertime.
3. Limit tech use to three tools that I can fully control the flow of information on: a Fiio Snowsky Echo Mini music player, a Barnes and Noble Nook e-reader, and a Supernote Nomad e-ink tablet.

Normally, my iPad is a big time suck for me — I open it up to do some work, draw, or check the news over the weekend and wind up in a Reddit hole. So that’ll be going on the shelf.

And ultimately, if something goes sideways and I have to or wind up using tech that was on the “no” list, it’s okay. I can put it back on the shelf and reset the clock, or congratulate myself on more hours offline in a day than I might’ve had otherwise.

Because Big Tech or not, sometimes it’s just nice to get off the damn internet for a bit.

Global Day of Unplugging is Happening; This is My Adaptation was originally published in Tired of Tech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.