**Blackout Night** (Inspired by Hannah Maggs)

Hi guys, 

So, after reading Hannah Maggs' blog post  (her youtube) on 'blackout nights' I decided to give it a go as I spend FAR too much time on social media sites and electrical devices and it was starting to make my life much harder. 

My room was getting messier by the second, coursework was being put off until last minute and I was always complaining that I never had time to do anything. 
That was, of course, because instead of just doing what needed to be done, I would sit for hours scrolling through Facebook or Instagram, looking at what other people were doing with their days and wishing I was doing something with mine.

Enter blackout night to save the day. 

Blackout nights are when you switch off all electrical devices and take a break from social media and things of the such and as Hannah put it...

The rules are simple and last from 7.00pm until the following morning.

Rule 1. No internet..(no, not even to tweet). 

Rule 2. No TV – but films / boxsets are ok

Rule 3. No cheating!

My very first blackout night was on the 13th July (2014, in case you're from the future) and this is how it went... 

At around half 6 I put down my phone and realised I had pretty much lost the whole day (I've finished college) to YouTube videos and refreshing Instagram, I looked around my room and registered for the 100th time that, yes, it does need cleaning, a lot.
It was then I decided a blackout was needed.

I gathered a few thing to keep me entertained during blackout and at 7pm it began.
  

I turned off all of my devices (iPhone, iPad and Laptop) and at this point I would love to say that I instantly felt free or uplifted, I did not. 

I felt anxious and all I wanted to do was check Instagram or Facebook but of course I could not, this carried on for only about five minutes but then I thought I just needed to preoccupy myself with other things so I decided to get active and go for a run with my puppy Watson. 

He gets way too excited for walkies.

When I got back, I jumped into super comfy and cool (heat wise) PJ's and painted my nails and within the next half hour I had coloured in a princess from a book and read half a Katie Fforde book. 

This summer has been so hot.

Nails: Essence in  'Love me, cupcake'

Katie Fforde's 'love letters' is brilliant I would recommend.

At that point I realised I needed to do something slightly more productive and tidy my room, now tidying my room usually takes me around four/five hours to do because every three seconds I would be checking my phone or changing the song I was dancing around to.
However, this time was completely different, I had no phone to check and I couldn't use my phone for music (as usual) so I had to use my ol' faithful CD player (how very retro,aha!) I whacked on my favourite CD..

 

Arctic Monkeys 'AM' is sooo good if you haven't got it already
 where have you been?!  go get

and within an hour and a half, I had totally gutted my entire room and had tonnes of fun dancing around while doing so. 

A half of the shoes I own, clean & tidy.

After I had finished, I went for dinner and then still had time to clean my entire make-up brush collection. 

After / Before 

So, in conclusion of this incredibly loooong blog post (sorry!) I most definitely would do blackout nights again, they are productive, refreshing, they remind you just how many hours there are in a day and how many of them you waste endlessly scrolling through Tumblr (oops.) 

Thanks for reading!

Much love 

H x