Been Offline for Thirty Days - Do You Know What I Missed?

I didn’t miss all the things I was absolutely, utterly convinced that I could not operate without.

I didn’t miss the relentless News Cycle - daily dripping doses of negative news designed to create simultaneously outrage and impotence. A firehose of carefully curated rage bait consumed in utter passivity.

I didn’t miss the unrelenting and unending notifications of Social Media updates. A never-ending barrage of other people’s highlight reels, not their reality. I missed the crippling anxiety of comparison, of never being good enough, fast enough, brave enough .. everything “Enough”

I didn’t miss the DM’s, the Slack Messages, the unstoppable tsunami of pings and chirrups from my phone and laptop. I realised slowly that the concerto of digital noise was merely the illusion of being busy; I missed the constant context-switching that disguised itself as productivity, and instead killed any opportunity of deep work beneath perpetual motion.

It turns out that the things we fear missing are designed to be neurologically addictive, not important!

In fact, here is what I “should” have been afraid of missing - because it’s happening offline too! Being terminally online made me miss so many of these amazing human strengths.

I missed the Human Connection - the in-person sessions where unscripted laughter with colleagues is a given. The subtle body language in conversations that builds true trust and understanding. The quiet empathy that can’t be conveyed in a Slack Message. For our business, this is the bedrock of innovation and leadership.

I missed being able to access an uninterrupted Flow State. Having the space to have a deep, three-hour dive into a problem where the solution emerges not from some search engine or AI hallucination but from my own neural pathways. This, after all, is where genius is born.

I missed my own creativity! Boredom creates space to spark wild ideas. A walk without a podcast or music that solves a sticky problem that you have been wrestling with. The Mind Map drawn on the back of an envelope that becomes a new brand and series of books (Really). A slowly dawning realisation that the latest sexy tool (AI) can only optomise, only the human brain can create something from nothing!

Turns out I was right to fear disconnection - I just feared missing the wrong things. The most important things - connection, creativity, clarity don’t live on my feed. They’re in the space “between” the pings. They should be the focus!

So what is the plan going forward? How can I transition this newly acquired knowledge into a new solution, a new methodology for my life and business?

Listen, I get that most of us cannot just disappear for a month. What we can do is build a “Human-First Operating System”. For me, that begins with “Intentional Mind Mapping”

I made the decision to act as an active curator of the information that I bring into my life - not a passive consumer. I mind-mapped the sources of information flowing in and rationalised them so that only the very best quality and most useful remained in play.

Some Apps didn’t make the cut - some were restricted to work computers only. My desktop and phone screens were simplified in minutes, and suddenly I had more space between the pings to do what really mattered.

I identified the relationships that really mattered within my business- not only that they really mattered, but I took time to schedule real face-to-face, focused time with them every month.

I took this into my family and social life - and organised some catch-up dinners, coffee dates, and a rare weekend away with those whom I “remembered” really do matter.

I prioritised and scheduled my “deep work” blocks in my working week instead of leaving inspiration and innovation to chance and random shower moments.

The value in my business is in the output from these sessions, not some delusion of “being busy”. I use my Mind Maps to germinate ideas, leave them to sit a while, to reflect on them, to iterate and refine BEFORE I go online to seek answers for what I don’t know.

These three new habits are not a nice-to-have negotiable, a luxury! They are instead a non-negotiable strategy for professional relevance in a world that is barrelling every closer to mediocrity via the homogenisation of the terminally online.

It may be contrarian and completely out of the current zeitgeist, but I don’t believe that the future belongs to those who are the best at using AI. I believe it belongs to those who are the best at being human. To those who can connect, create, and think in ways machines cannot.

These precious Mind Maps I created are not about productivity - they are about reclaiming my cognitive sovereignty.