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Now by nature I’m a very much ‘on the grid’ person. I need to micromanage everyone on the TCC Team, just ask Tessa and Cecilia, and I’m constantly checking up, checking in, and checking on progress. Which now I realize was a huge waste of my time, but I’m the type of person that sends to-do texts to them at 12AM, who nitpicks every part of our site and overbooks myself to the point of overwhelming myself. I mean, I leave voice memos of things to get done and have five different to-do lists going at once on my phone (to-do Cecilia, to-do Youtube, to-do digital, to-do blog, to-do home). It’s funny because I’m good at managing other people’s time but by doing so was wasting an enormous amount of my time. Anyway, I decided I needed to disappear more, falling off the grid and just taking a day off.

I’ve needed a day off more than I’d like to admit lately, and recently I’ve learned a few tricks that have helped me step back and fall off the grid. I’m a Gemini, which means one day I’m type A and need to manage everything myself, and the next day I’m totally chill and delegating to my fullest. But if I’m being honest with myself as we head into the busy season of blogging, I’ve decided that I need a balance of being on and off the grid, for the sake of the TCC Crew and my sanity. I wanted to share the tricks I’ve learned and implemented with you all in this post, in hopes of inspiring some of you to fall off the grid with me. 

Do you guys watch Park and Recreation? If so you might remember the episode where Ron hires Tom and Donna to get him ‘completely off the grid’ well that’s how I felt last month. If you haven’t seen the episode stop what you are doing now and watch it, it is actually one of my favorites. Anyway, while I don’t have a Tom and Donna to help me, I did implement these three tricks, to help separate myself from the craziness of the job and the demandingness of the blogging business.  

#1 Deleting My Email App From My Phone: This trick has worked wonders but was really hard for me to pull the trigger on. One of my favorite parts of the job is getting emails, it’s like getting a letter in the mail. Doesn’t matter whether it’s a bill or a thank you card, I loved seeing my phone light up at all hours of the day with emails. I loved it so much, I would stop what I was doing right in my tracks to check and respond to all emails. I mean, I was a soooo effective at answering emails but ended up getting nothing else done. I was always pulling late nights due to not having my blog posts done or photos edited. Hi, I’m Aubrey and I’m addicted to my email inbox, NO JOKE. So I did something crazy, deleted my work email from my phone, ahhh. It hurt a little bit but was huge for my work flow. I have three dedicated email times, 9 AM, 2 PM and 8 PM. These are the only times I’ll pull up my Gmail account and if something is urgent, the TCC Crew knows to send me a text. Not only has this helped me fall off the grid, but it’s also helped me cut down my working hours behind a computer from 9 hours a day to about 4.5 hours a day. To sum it up: Call me, beep me, if you want to reach me!

#2 Top Seven To-Do List: If you’ve read the book, The One Thing, than you already know where I’m headed with this. In the book the author instructs readers to create daily to-do list with no more than seven things to accomplish in a day; AND at the top of the list you should label your ONE THING! That is the one thing you MUST complete in the day before turning off, but just because it is at the top of your list, doesn’t necessarily have to be the first thing you do when you wake up. 

Basically, the idea here is that you should save your ONE THING for when you’re ‘feeling it’, does that make sense? Stay with me here, it’s kind of like going to the gym, some people can wake up and instantly go to the gym and run four miles; but some people no matter how much coffee you give them can’t get into a morning workout…aka me. So instead of trying to fit a triangle into a square, schedule your to do list in order of your mojo. I for instance, write my blog posts in the morning because it’s the hardest thing for me to get off my to-do list, writing doesn’t come easy to me and I’m always procrastinating, so I get this mundane task off the list first when I’m calm and save my ONE THING for night-time when I’m most alert, active, and FEELING IT. 

By compressing down my to-do list to just seven things and reorganizing how I complete them by my mood, has really helped me to getting my work done within an eight hour work day and stepping off the grid. Again, this process has helped me stay ahead of the game, which frees up more time for myself and leaves me feeling more accomplished at the end of the day, knowing that I’ve completed what I must for the success of the TCC brand. 

#3 In The Words of Arron Burr ‘Talk Less, Smile More’: I mean, guys sometimes it is just not worth going down the rabbit hole. My job is a very public one and you wouldn’t believe some of the emails, text messages and DM’s I get; I mean people can be odd. I went into blogging with the principle that I would respond to ALL READERS messages, but honestly feeding into such negativity from ingenuine readers is such a waste of time. It’s funny how quickly I’ll want to respond to the rude comments, to the text messages from acquaintances who are constantly letting me down or just defending myself and my content to complete strangers. 

I mean responding to those messages instead of responding and spending time with loved ones is silly, even if it means not everyone gets a response. This year I’ve gotten really good at talking less, and just smiling more. If you have an issue with a picture, with my content or just aren’t being genuine then, it’s not worth working the extra hours of planning a politically correct, nice, and kind rebuttal in order to please unappeasable people. I would say by talking and engaging less with negative comments has cut down the time I spend on social media platforms, but has also provided me with more time to talk to you guys, the actual readers of this blog. Win, Win! Now apply this to your life, so if you have a friend that’s never happy with you or someone on social media that irks you every time they post, just delete them straight out of your life, like Arron Burr Sir. 

By using the above three tricks to getting off the grid, I’ve been able to scale back on the hours spent behind my computer and my phone, and has allowed me to spend time where I actually want to be…the beach. Getting outside and taking in New England’s beaches is by far my favorite thing to do in spring and summer. Flash back to last week when my Mom and I were visiting Charleston, we finished our content shoot day early and decided to celebrate by making a quick stop to Sullivan’s beach. I was so excited to pull out my new Lilly Pulitzer arrivals and just breath in that crisp sea air. I wore this blue and white, Lilly Pulitzer off the shoulder dress, and watched as the lighthouse turned on its light for the ships at sea. Even better we actually saw some dolphins, it was the perfect end to a busy workday. 

If I of all people, can make time to get off the grid, detach from emails, detach from busy work and detach from time-consuming people than you can too! Anyway I’d love to hear from you guys, do you have any tips for getting off the grid? If so let me know below.

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