I say this not as someone riding a high-horse, but as a guy who himself struggles with “continuous partial attention” in the wired world.

Would you want to idly check your Facebook feed while wandering the ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru? Would you want to search YouTube for wacky cat videos while sipping cold white wine on a quiet beach in the Greek Cyclades? Of course not: Travel is a heightened experience that demands your full attention, and the lessons it teaches you can apply at home.

If there’s one endeavor that can help jar you out of that partial-attention haze, it’s travel. Fortunately, this initiative isn’t about becoming a Luddite it’s about lightening your electronic baggage - that is, managing your “wired” life in such a way that it better enhances your real life (instead of distracting you from it).Ī phrase that has come into common use in recent years is “continuous partial attention” - the 21st century compulsion to electronically multitask our lives, to skim through each day and never be completely invested in one single activity.

I realize that there is no lack of irony in this new challenge: You are, after all, reading this online, and my no-baggage journey has been arranged in such a way that I can keep this content updated on an almost daily basis. This idea - to waste less time in the virtual world and seek a life that is less mediated - ties into the “Be Where You Are Now” theme of my Do Lecture in Wales last year. This week’s challenge, “ unplug from the virtual world,” is about managing your online and electronic-communication habits in such a way that you can make the most of your real-world surroundings. My sponsors will give out weekly swag to honor the most compelling reader submissions (see below for details), but ideally this should be seen less as a competitive undertaking than a way to set personal goals and consider new ideas. This in mind, I’m inviting readers to join the journey by participating in a weekly series of challenges, most of which can be applied at home. As I stated in my introduction post, the No Baggage Challenge isn’t just about traveling around the world without luggage - it’s also an inquiry into simplifying material concerns and seeking rich life-experiences.

A Year Unplugged by Sharael Kolberg