Nowadays, being connected and immersed in the digital world is part of everyday life. From hours spent browsing the internet, watching cat posts on Instagram or Ask Me Anything (AMA) videos on YouTube, and stalking the Facebook or Twitter accounts of well-known celebrities, we all live our lives behind a screen. However, while the internet helps us stay in touch with friends, earn money online or enjoy our free time, sometimes we really want to get away from our cellphone or iPad screen. for a bit of digital detox, helping us pursue our life goals, enjoy our relationships, and so much more. Moreover, we often face long app interruptions or internet connection issues forcing us to reimagine life without our smartphones or other tech devices.
So the next time you’re faced with the inability to stay productive in the face of these hardships or you don’t know how to kill time when your Wi-Fi is down, don’t worry and feel lost, instead, check out our backup plan to stay on top of your game when your favorite apps crash.
So without further ado, let’s find out some fun things to do on your phone or other devices while waiting for the internet connection to return!
Key points to remember
- While the internet helps us stay in touch with friends, earn money online, or enjoy our free time, sometimes we really want to step away from the screens of our tech devices for a digital detox. .
- We often face long app interruptions or internet connection issues forcing us to reimagine life without our smartphones or other tech devices.
- You can do so many fun things and focus on real social interactions while abstaining from using tech devices for a while.
1. Read Articles Offline
If you like to read articles, you can prepare yourself by installing Poached, which allows you to save your articles, tweets, recipes, etc. favorites, to read them later. When you come across something on your smartphone that you might want to read later, select Pocket from the share option and store it. Plus, you can use the app’s Discover feature to access a curated selection of articles based on your interests. Download Pocket’s browser extension if you’re working on a PC.
The Newsstand app, available for iOS and Android, is another good app for downloading newspapers and magazines, which you can read when you don’t have an internet connection. It’s a one-stop place where you can keep your free and paid subscriptions. Moreover, it saves entire posts and downloads new content when you have internet for offline reading later.
2. Go for a walk
Going for a long walk might seem obvious, but it’s basically one of the easiest (and cheapest) things you can do when you want to ditch your cell phone, computer, and other devices for a short time. . Getting outside to breathe in the fresh air, whether it’s a leisurely walk in your neighborhood park or a brisk walk to a nearby friend’s house, will be helpful in relieving the stress that comes with constant connectivity. Moreover, you can walk around with your mother or your friend and enjoy real social interactions while talking or just discussing ideas with them. Other great digital detox ideas are playing with your dog in the nearby park or taking a bike ride to get lost in nature or the city.
3. Make phone calls
Consider all the calls you need to make but haven’t had time to prioritize. Do you need to book a haircut? A visit to the doctor? A veterinary examination for your dog? When was the last time you called your parents? Surprise your friend with a call and talk about your next date or lend an ear and listen to what they have to say instead of DMing or tweeting them. If your Internet connection is down, but you still have cell service, take a few minutes to cross a few of these numbers off your list.
4. Make a to-do list
You may be offline right now, but your internet connection will of course be restored sooner or later. So now is the perfect time to grab a pen and a piece of paper and make a to-do list, including organizing and prioritizing tasks effectively. You can also plan a date to never forget, such as a party with friends or a picnic or a meal plan for the week.
Alternatively, several to-do list apps, such as Google Calendar and Evernote, can still be used when you’re offline. You just need to be logged into Evernote before you lose your internet connection, and anything you enter offline will sync the next time you log in.
Any.do is another task management app that provides the best tools to neatly organize to-do lists and manage your schedule. It has a great offline productivity app that makes available any tasks you’ve ever synced to your phone or computer, and any changes you make will be uploaded to your account the next time you log in. So make sure you take control of your tasks by monitoring them.
5. Listen to podcasts offline
Podcasts are one of the most popular ways to get information or get entertained these days because you can listen to them in the car, at the gym, etc. However, if you don’t have an internet connection, you can still listen to podcasts. episodes; it just requires a little planning.
Individual podcast episodes can be downloaded (or “saved”) to your iOS device using Apple’s Podcasts app (which you can get via itunes if it is not already on your device). This lets you listen to podcasts even when you’re offline. So, to prepare for your commute or other times without internet access, we recommend downloading plenty of podcast episodes in advance.
To store an episode on the Podcast app, follow these steps: find your podcast episode, click the three dots to the right of the title, then select “Save Episode”. The download may take a few minutes. Once the podcast is downloaded, you can listen to it online or offline from the “My Podcasts” tab.
If you have an Android smartphone, you can listen to podcasts online and offline with the Stitcher App. To listen to previously downloaded podcast episodes without an internet connection, use “offline mode”. You can either download these episodes individually or configure Stitcher to download new episodes of subscribed podcasts whenever you have internet access.
6. Take a break
Why not take a break and relax when you don’t have internet access? Breaks have been proven to increase productivity by improving alertness, concentration and work speed.
Take a walk, take a nap, meditate, spend some time reading, or meet a co-worker for coffee and talk about something other than work. We offer the free Headspace software (available for iOS and android), which will guide you through the fundamentals of meditation in just 10 minutes.
During the digital device detox, you can also cook new things, write a blog post on paper, practice your forgotten skills, learn a new language or learn to play the piano, etc.
7. Host an unplanned staff meeting
Did your internet connection go down when everyone was at work? If you enjoy interacting with other people but want things to stay focused on work, an internet outage can be a great time to bring the team together to brainstorm, check on everyone’s progress on projects, or chat. planning or concerns that you wouldn’t normally do. have time to catch up.
8. Download Apps to Watch Offline
When it comes to entertainment, video games aren’t your only option. You can also download apps to your phones for virtually every streaming service available to watch your favorite shows wherever you are. Some services will let you download episodes of your favorite shows to your device so you can watch them without an internet connection or after you’ve exhausted your data plan.
Quick fact
By forgoing digital devices temporarily, you can get rid of the stress of constant connectivity.
9. Write thank you notes
While you’re offline, why not be thankful for all the great things in your life or handwrite a few thank you cards to the people who have made a difference in your life?
Even if you don’t have stationery handy, you can write the thank you notes on a piece of paper to transcribe into thinner stationery once you get it. Here’s a Hallmark thank you note template to get you started.
10. Organize Your space
What better opportunity than now to finally get that cluttered drawer under control or rummage through old stuff and donate old clothes to charity? Keep your mind (and your hands) busy for at least an hour by cleaning and tidying up your bedroom/drawer, kitchen, etc.
No matter how well organized you are, chances are you still have a mountain of outdated documents cluttering up your home office. Get out your paper shredder and help yourself by decluttering your desk (and your mind). Unsubscribe from mailing lists to free yourself from the burden of deleting emails, update your contact list and delete lists you never contact, connect your email accounts to send and receive emails from your smartphone, etc.
11. Create a playlist
Many of us listen to music while working because it helps us stay “in the zone.” When we listen to music we enjoy, our core brain fires, releasing dopamine: the neurotransmitter of arousal and pleasure.
While you can’t access songs individually when you’re offline, depending on how you listen to music, you can still create a playlist to listen to when the internet is down. If you use iTunes and have already downloaded the music you want to listen to, you can create a new playlist at any time, whether you’re signed in or not. Spotify’s “offline mode” feature available for premium customers lets you create and listen to playlists offline; however, you must connect to the Internet at least once every thirty days to save your music preferences offline.
