Last week, many of you shared your goals for the upcoming year. Feel free to keep sending them to me – I read each one personally. A lot of you mentioned wanting to connect more deeply with friends, family, and the world around you.

I totally get it. In our digital age, with endless emails, tweets, status updates, Pins, and snaps, it’s no surprise we feel overwhelmed. We’re flooded with so much information that we lose touch with the people we genuinely want to connect with. We’re so hooked on push notifications, retweets, comments, and likes that we become digitally addicted, running on disconnected autopilot.

There’s so much vying for our attention that we forget we’re dealing with real humans on the other end. Yet, we wonder why we feel disconnected in a world that’s supposedly more connected than ever before.

Isn’t that how many of us handle social media? We’re not actually connecting with one another. In “How to Win Friends & Influence People in the Digital Age” by Dale Carnegie, Duke University sociologist Lynn Smith-Lovin points out that while people might have 600 Facebook friends and email 25 people daily, they aren’t discussing personally important matters.

I’m guilty of this too, but I’m trying hard to unplug and reconnect outside of digital interactions. Earlier this year, I decided to take a plunge by deleting all social media apps from my phone and, more recently, email as well. Yes, even email! It was a bit extreme and challenging, but completely liberating. The first week without email, I constantly worried about missing out on significant venture capitalist emails. I’ve never received one like that in the seven years we’ve been around, but those thoughts crossed my mind when I couldn’t check my email every minute.

I still stay connected and updated while at my desktop for over 9 hours a day. But the rest of the time, when I’m home, is for me and my wife. It’s our time to hang out, catch up on shows, read, or even just be bored.

Yes, be bored. Instead of endlessly scrolling through others’ lives, I find things to do with my time. Who knows how many hours we waste scrolling instead of talking with people right in front of us? Now, I’m glad to be bored instead of mindlessly scrolling – it’s about reclaiming my time!

Because that’s exactly what it is, my time. Social media and email don’t need my attention from morning till night. It’s my time.

Or at least it is once again!

We’d love to hear your story! How do you disconnect? What inspires and drives you? Heck, send us a picture of your gym, and we’ll feature it on Facebook!