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Pull a plug: How busy professionals find their own ways to log off
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Not all of us can disconnect in the same way. See how mothers, content creators, doctors and other busy professionals found the perfect online-offline balance
We featured, a few weeks ago, the stories of people who found ways – even temporary ones – to cut ties to their smartphone and its relentless pinging. Not only did it make some readers look up from their screens with hope, it got others to share their experiences too. Mothers reacted differently from doctors; content creators needed different hacks from artists. Here’s how they conquered their challenge.
The ones who made it stick
Ruhie Pande, an HR and marketing leader in Mumbai, admits that her first attempt failed. She’s a mother. Her children live away from home. So, the urge to pick up the phone and check on the kids was hard to dismiss. She lived in “the fear of missing a call when they might need me.”
She didn’t go completely offline. But she did sit down and work out time slots to periodically use the phone. It involved “confronting a simple truth: not everything is an emergency.” Once her family knew the ideal offline way to reach her in an emergency, “that constant background anxiety lifted,” she says. Her mornings and bedtimes are now screen-free, and it cost her nothing. “Setting boundaries with my screen wasn’t something I could outsource or depend on an app for.”
Asif Upadhye, an entrepreneur in Mumbai, got there through subtraction: Notifications off, WhatsApp check-ins only three times a day unless something is urgent, no phone once he’s home. When he needs to think, he goes back to paper and pen. “The need to constantly stay connected due to a feeling of FOMO is a choice.”
The ones who are getting there
It’s harder to disconnect when work revolves around the online world. Rohit Saluja (@OfficialRohitSaluja), a Delhi-based digital content creator, says the algorithm “constantly demands your presence,” and it bled into everything. “Dinners turned into comment-reply sessions, and trips stopped being vacations because they became all about capturing content and responding to DMs,” he says. His fixes started small: Silencing notifications, setting separate ringtones for work contacts and close family. Missed calls are a price he’d had to pay, and the people close to him have learned to accept it.
Supriya Dixit, a PR professional works remotely, which means she’s dependent on her phone to stay connected to her team and her industry. She logged out of her social media accounts. “Each attempt at first felt good.” Then work pulled her back. She’s found a compromise: Using her phone’s built-in Sleep Mode and Zen Mode, which still let her use the phone for work, but filter out other distractions.
Mahvish Fatima, a technical project manager in Lucknow, tried setting time limits for when she scrolled. But it was like hitting Snooze: “Just five more minutes,” she would tell herself. “Then another ten.” She does ultimately log off, but wonders whether “the time I save is giving me more time to enjoy life, or just allowing me to fit in more work.” Putting the phone down and filling it with something fulfilling is a challenge she didn’t expect.
The ones who can’t help it
Doctors have had it particularly hard. “Being constantly available has a personal cost, but sometimes being unavailable can have a clinical cost,” says Dr Saptarshi Ghosh, a consultant clinical oncologist. The issue is not how many calls he gets, but that “a part of your mind remains constantly preoccupied with your patients”. A call at dinner may take five minutes. “Physically, you have returned, but mentally, you may still be with that patient.”
He’s learnt to triage: Emergency calls go through the hospital team, routine questions wait for consultation hours, and families get an alternative emergency number.
The ones reframing the challenge
Many who wean themselves off their phone for long stretches find that the offline world presents its own challenges. Bhavyashree S, an artist and solo traveller from Kerala, chose to “look away from the screen and look at the greens, mountains, rain and everything around” on treks. She leaves the phone behind, shares her ticket details with family and friends, carries a journal with important numbers, and keeps physical copies of her IDs. “I’ve realised that I don’t want to be digitally present at the cost of being physically present.”
Paricher Tavaria, a Mumbai-based creative director and fashion communication educator, found it hard to switch off after losing her parents, with her brother living in another country. “After more than 20 years in the industry, I’ve come to realise that it’s okay not to be available to colleagues all the time.” Her tools were simple. “Just willpower and a conscious decision.”
From HT Brunch, November 14, 2026
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