David Emery Online

Disconnected

4 January 2015

As I write it is 9pm the night before the first day of school.

It's sort of fascinating how that feeling that was drilled into you as a child lingers on well into adulthood, isn't it? I have a good, fun job that I enjoy immensely but yet here I am, the last weekend at the bloated end of the Christmas break full of the creeping dread.

Hopefully I haven't forgotten my maths homework.

Maybe this dread, this mild sense of malaise, is because the December break is so vital, especially if you work in the creative industries, and especially if you do it right. Now when I say "right" I don't mean fleeing the country for a blast of sun like a migrating bird making full use of the fact it has wings (or saved up air miles), or sloping home to your parents to remind yourself what being a teenager was like (but with a real ID rather then a fake one that said you were actually Canadian).

No, what I mean by doing it right is to disconnect. Turn off your email. Don't "check in". Don't put an out of office on that says "I'm on holiday but checking my email so responses will be delayed".

Just Don't.

It still staggers me how many people I talk to have such a fundamental difficulty doing this, even though no one denies it's not the right thing to do. Email, and being connected with work, has become such an addition amongst so many. It's so harmful though not to disconnect, let go and let other things wander into your mind and take hold. And you just can't do that if you're still chained to your work email.

Maybe you think you can, and most of the time it's fine, right? You can just keep an eye on it, glance every once in a while but you can still relax into your holiday, can't you? Of course, that's assuming that you never get any emails that are remotely irritating. No emails that, for whatever reason, get under your skin. If you're sitting there thinking "but no emails ever irritate me David, I love reading emails, it helps me relax!" then I suspect, dearest reader, you may be such a pathological liar you've even fooled yourself.

But you're not, are you? A shitty email can fly in from anywhere at any time. The wonders of modern technology means that - unless you take steps to counter it - you can wake up on Christmas morning, check your phone to see which one of your friends has mass-texted everyone they've ever communicated with (including Papa Johns and their bank), and catch a look at an email that pisses you off for the rest of day.

Music, and other similar creative industries, seem pretty bad for this. I suspect that's because of the incredibly blurred lines between when you're working and when you're not - this is hardly a 9 to 5 profession. Going to a gig is working, going to a festival might be working - there's lots of scenarios where what is traditionally "leisure" time is turned into work time. Once you've knocked down the barrier of "once I leave work I'm not at work" then it's pretty difficult to build it back up again. But you have to, otherwise how can you have any sense of distance of objectivity of what you're doing?

I could make the argument that your life is better focused on something other than work but that - while almost certainly true - is pretty trite and anyhow; there's nothing wrong with prioritising work if that's the path you want to walk. Either way though, having a healthy distance will make you better at whatever it is that you are doing. We have such a culture of inherent competition that implies that being "on it" is an aspirational goal, being quickest to respond day or night, lest it seem like you lack enthusiasm or focus. When of course, taking your time and actually thinking about what you want to do, taking a step back, is the smarter course.

I'm not just talking about the holidays in December either - this is any holiday, any weekend, any evening. Do you have to be checking? Do you have to respond, or can it wait until you're in the office? Sometimes things are urgent, sure, but really; just how often is that?

Probably not as often as you might think.

In fact, why not give it a go? Plenty of people do dry Januaries, to detox their bodies - how about doing the same for your head and turn off your email whenever you're not in the office for the rest of January and see how you get on? If you feel the need you could even put an out of office on while you're not checking but I bet you anything people won't even notice...

***

This post started off as a traditional "what music did I like in 2014" article, but after 3 weeks off I realised I couldn't even remember what had come out this year. It was a nice feeling. Despite myself I've cobbled together something anyway:

2014 Top 20