Recently, I started unplugging once a week. Tuesday night, I let my loved ones know that I am reachable only by horse and buggy—meaning, if they want to find me, they’ll have to come over. The computer is turned off. The phone is shut down. Any device with a screen goes black. It stays that way all of Wednesday and through Thursday morning. And when I finally turn everything back on—reluctantly—it feels like I’m entering a different world.

I’ve done radical things before. I now eat only once a day. I used to be a full-on vegetarian; now I eat almost only beef. For some people, I’m a low-level lunatic. For others, I’m an interesting test bed to observe. But I don’t think anything has ever had such a fast and dramatic effect on me as unplugging has.

The first thing I noticed was the quiet. Not just external quiet—but an internal one, too. Like putting a blanket over a parrot’s cage, I felt myself calming down, tuning in. Some of that tuning takes time. Paint doesn’t cure in the first hour. Bread takes time to rise. You have to wait for it. But once I did, I was amazed by the subtle shifts.

I had to dig out an old pocket watch and find a battery just to know the time. And oddly, checking the time became… soothing. Reaching into my pocket, flipping open the little lid, reading that antique face—it made time feel more like a companion than a taskmaster. When’s the last time looking at the time made you feel more relaxed?

And then—there was the stretch of the day itself. The first time I unplugged, the day felt long. Not in a boring way. Just full. Spacious. The sun rose, the sun set, and everything in between was mine. I went to bed before 9 p.m., not out of obligation but because I’d worked with my hands all day and was tired, like a farmer. It felt right. Like I’d earned the day.

It struck me how screens tend to blur the hours. A few episodes, some scrolling, a podcast, and suddenly we’re drifting off to sleep without even noticing what the day held. But without them, your thoughts get their time in court. They come, they speak, they pass. The fear, I think, is that left alone with our thoughts, we’ll feel overwhelmed. But the truth is, when they’re not constantly shoved aside by alerts and messages and distractions, they actually mellow out. They’re not so bad when they feel heard.

I’ve been aware of time for a long time—maybe too aware. When my daughter was young, we sent her to school in India. It’s a long story with a happy ending. But it meant letting go of her very young, during a divorce. I felt I was sparing her the conflict, but it left me watching time like a hawk. Every summer she came home. Every winter I flew to meet her. And every moment with her felt tinged with the knowledge that it was fleeting. This is the last time we’ll visit this place. This is the last time she’ll wear these pants—she’s growing. That awareness has never left me.

Now, when I unplug, I feel that same preciousness return—but not with sadness. With presence. Those 18 waking hours feel more mine than whole weeks sometimes do. I crave that clarity now. I crave that slow.

And when I turn the devices back on—Thursday morning—the flood hits. Notifications, messages, emails, noises. It’s jarring. It takes effort to adjust back to the speed, to the noise, to the fragmented attention. And I realize: it wasn’t just peace I was experiencing when I unplugged. It was ownership. Of my time, my attention, my life.

I’ll always make space for friends and loved ones. But this space—for me—is sacred. I plan to keep doing this, and likely to do it more. A single day a week has already given me back something I didn’t know I’d lost.

If you’re reading this and you’re curious—try it. Let the screens go dark. Let the thoughts arrive. Let the day stretch. And if you find yourself calmer, slower, more human—you might just want to do it again.

And again.