Nowadays, being connected and immersed in the digital world is part of everyday life. From hours of trawling through the internet, watching cat posts on Instagram or Ask Me Anything (AMA) Videos on YouTube, and stalking well-known celebrities' Facebook or Twitter accounts, we're all living our lives behind a screen. However, whilst the internet helps us stay connected with friends, make money online, or enjoy our free time, sometimes we genuinely want to step away from the screen of our mobile phone or iPad for a little bit of digital detoxing, helping us pursue our life goals, enjoy our relationships, and much more. Moreover, we often face lengthy app interruptions or internet connection problems forcing us to re-imagine life without our smartphones or other tech devices.
So, the next time you’re faced with the impossibility of staying productive when dealing with these difficulties or you have no clue how to kill time when your Wi Fi is down, don't worry or feel lost, instead check out our backup plan for staying on top of your game when your favorite apps go down.
So without further delay, let’s look into fun things to do on your phone or other devices while waiting for the Internet connection to be back!
Key Takeaways
- Whilst the internet helps us stay connected with friends, make money online, or enjoy our free time, sometimes we genuinely want to step away from the screen of our tech devices for a digital detoxing.
- We often face lengthy app interruptions or internet connection problems forcing us to re-imagine life without our smartphones or other tech devices.
- You can do so many fun things and focus on real-life social interactions while refraining from using tech devices for a while.
1. Read Articles Offline
If you enjoy reading articles, you can prepare by installing Pocket, which allows you to save your favorite articles, tweets, recipes, etc., to read later. While coming across an item on your smartphone that you might want to read later, select Pocket from the share option and store it. Additionally, you can use the app's Discover feature to access a curated selection of articles depending on your interest. Download Pocket's browser extension if you're working on a PC.
Newsstand app, available for both 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 single place where you can keep your free and paid subscriptions. Moreover, it saves entire publications and downloads new content when you have internet for offline reading later.
2. Go for a Walk
Going for a long walk may sound obvious, but it's basically one of the simplest (and cheapest) things you can do when you want to give up your mobile phone, computer, and other devices for a brief time. Getting outside for some fresh air, whether it's a leisurely stroll around your neighborhood park or a fast walk to a friend's house nearby, will be helpful for letting go of the stress that stems from constant connectivity. Moreover, you can go for a walk with your mom or friend and take advantage of real-life social interactions while simply talking or discussing ideas with them. Some other great digital detox ideas are to play with your dog in the nearby park or go for a bike ride to get lost in nature or the city.
3. Make Some Phone Calls
Consider all the calls you need to make but haven't had the time to prioritize. Do you need to book a haircut? A doctor's visit? 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 meet-up or lend an ear and listen to what they have to say instead of DM-ing or tweeting them. If your internet is down, but you still have cell service, take a few minutes to cross a couple of these numbers off your list.
4. Make a To-Do List
You may be disconnected right now, but your internet connection will, of course, be restored sooner or later. So, this is a perfect moment to grab a pen and a piece of paper and make a to-do list of tasks to complete, including effectively organizing and prioritizing the tasks. You can also plan a get-together to never forget, such as a party with friends or a picnic or a meal plan for the week.
Alternatively, several to-do-list applications, such as Google Calendar and Evernote, can still be used while you are offline. You simply need to be logged in to Evernote before you lose your internet connection, and whatever you enter while offline will be synchronized the next time you connect.
Any.do is another task management app that provides the best tools for perfectly organizing to-do lists and managing your calendar. It has a great offline productivity app that makes any tasks you've already synced with your phone or computer available, and any changes you make will be uploaded to your account whenever you next have a connection. So make it a point to take control of your to-dos by keeping track of them.
5. Listen to Podcasts Offline
Podcasts are one of the most popular ways to get information or entertainment these days, as 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 podcast 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 through iTunes if it isn't already on your device). This allows you to listen to podcasts even when you're offline. So, to prepare for your commute or other times with no access to the internet, we recommend downloading a large number 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, and select "Save episode." The download may take a few minutes to complete. 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 both online and offline with the Stitcher app. To listen to previously downloaded podcast episodes without an internet connection, use the "offline mode." You can either download these episodes individually or configure Stitcher to download new episodes of podcasts you're subscribed to whenever you have internet access.
Pro-Tip
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6. Take a Break
Why not take a break and relax when you don't have internet access? Taking breaks has been proven to increase productivity by enhancing alertness, focus, and work speed.
Take a stroll, nap, meditate, spend a little time reading, or meet a coworker for coffee and speak about something other than work. We propose the free software Headspace (available for iOS and Android), which will walk you through the fundamentals of meditation in just 10 minutes.
During detoxing from digital devices, you can also cook new things, write a blog post on paper, practice your forgotten skills, learn a new language, or how to play the piano, etc.
7. Hold an Unscheduled Staff Meeting
Did your internet go down when everyone was at work? If you enjoy engaging with other people but want to keep things work-focused, an internet outage might be the ideal moment to gather the team to brainstorm, check up on the progress of everyone's projects, or discuss scheduling or concerns that you might not usually have time to catch up on.
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 practically every streaming service available to watch your favorite shows wherever you are. Some services will allow you to download episodes of your favorite series to your device so you can watch them without internet connectivity or after exhausting your data plan.
Fast Fact
By temporarily forgoing digital devices, you can let go of the stress that stems from constant connectivity.
9. Write Thank-You Notes
While you're disconnected, why not be thankful for all the beautiful things in your life or handwrite a few thank-you cards to folks who've made a difference in your life?
Even if you don't have any stationery on hand, you can write down the thank-you notes on a piece of paper to transcribe into a finer piece of 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 look through old stuff and donate old clothes to charity? Keep your mind (and hands) busy for at least an hour by cleaning out and arranging your room/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/office desk. Pull out your paper shredder and help yourself by decluttering your desk (and mind). Unsubscribe from mailing lists to free yourself from the burden of deleting emails, update your contact list and delete listings you don't ever contact, connect your email accounts to send and receive email from your smartphone, etc.
11. Make 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, the nucleus accumbent of our brains activates, releasing dopamine: the incentive and pleasure neurotransmitter.
While you may not be able to access the songs individually when you're offline, depending on how you listen to music, you can still create a playlist to enjoy when the internet is down. If you use iTunes and have already downloaded the music you wish to listen to, you can create a new playlist at any time, whether you're connected or not. Spotify's "offline mode" function available to premium customers enables you to create and listen to playlists offline; however, you must connect to the internet at least once every thirty days to save your offline music preferences.
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