Disconnecting and a New Training Plan

Do you ever feel like you're too connected?  Too much electronics?  I have felt like that a lot lately (says the girl who's selling, selling, selling on eBay in order to buy an iPad). 

I have my iPhone connected to my employer's network.  Part of that is because I am out of the office on Fridays and I work at home a fair amount.  I want to be able to read and respond to email quickly.  But is it necessary?  My employer does not require this of me, I just decided since I've got the phone, might as well do it.  Well, over the weekend I disconnected my email and it was fabulous!!  I think I will at least disconnect on Weekends and maybe at a certain time each night.  You'll probably say just stop reading it.  That would be smart if I could do it, but I can't.  If I see the notification, then I simply must read it.  I'm weird like that.

I also tend to let email interrupt me at work.  I can be working away and then an email comes in and I let it pull me away from what I was doing into whatever someone might need.  I pride myself on being a quick responder, but sometimes I wonder if other aspects of my work suffer.  It might be better to work for a solid hour on a project and then read and respond to email.  I wonder if having set times for reading email might be more efficient.

Multitasking.  This is something I always see on resumes as a strength or skill.  But is it really possibly to multitask.  I watched a time management seminar by Randy Pausch (here) who put that into perspective.  You really cannot do more than one thing well at a time.  You're actually doing multiple things badly.  I do think it is a skill to be able to deal with interruptions efficiently while not letting it derail your efforts on other tasks, but to simultaneously do multiple things at once, I don't believe it's possible.  Except maybe listen to music while working, but do you really hear the music?

I am one of those people who never sits and does one thing when I am at home.  If I'm watching TV, I'm also reading my Kindle or working on my computer.  Sometimes I'm not focusing on the TV at all, but it's on in the background, I'm reading my Kindle, and playing several games of Words with Friends (UN: LoriV518).  I believe this "multitasking" is not helping me relax at all. Why I have been unable to veg out with a book or movie lately is unknown, but I plan to make a change.  My brain needs to slow down and take five, even if it's only for thirty minutes.  It's not necessarily disconnecting, but it's slowing down to breathe a little, and slow the brain from switching gears every five seconds.  I look forward to trying this.

This week I plan to start the Run 10K program I have on my iPhone.  I'm actually going to start on week five where the run/walk intervals are even.  Each day this week looks like this (I'm not sure how that works out to 68 minutes because there will be a 5 minute walk at the end too, but we'll see):

I am looking forward to following this program--I'll be doing weeks 5-13 over the next 9 weeks.  I think it's going to help get me back into running regularly by having a set program to follow.  It's very similar to the Couch to 5K program concept.  And intervals are nice for weight loss. :-)

Do you need to disconnect?  Do you think there is such a thing at efficient "multitasking"?  Are you connected to your employer's network via your cell phone?