Hi,

Last week I came across one of the more interesting news stories I’ve seen in a long time - a creator named David Daines is planning on going off-the-grid and stepping away from being online for an entire year.

No phone, laptop, social media, texts, or email. Yes…you read that right lol. While doing so, he’s going to be testing his biomarkers and health benchmarks from before and after to see the real effect of screen time on his mind and body.

The fact that this is even a news story shows how plugged in and addicted we are as a society, however I couldn’t help but think how this relates to artists and creators. I even went down the rabbit hole and gamed out a potentially extreme scenario.

Let’s explore below.

Let’s dive in ⬇️

David went as far as building a website where he's publicly tracking over 100 biomarkers throughout the upcoming year offline:

• sleep quality

• stress hormones

• cognitive function

• mood

• etc

The point of the experiment is to find out, with actual data, what screens are actually doing to his brain and body. I’ll preface this newsletter with acknowledging that David’s experiment is probably the most extreme end of the spectrum one can do and begs a lot of questions.

• How will he get work done?

• How will people reach him?

• How will he communicate with others?

• How will he essentially function in society?

I fully acknowledge that most people can't do what David is doing. For so many of us, our work requires screen time (not just laptop, but social media use).

Going dark for a year is literally a fantasy.

That said…the essence of his experiment is fascinating. What does it mean to actually go off-the-grid in a world that is always online? What is it costing us?

Are there ways to apply some of these principles to create a healthier relationship with screen time even if it’s not his extreme version?

Always on

If you're an artist, creator, or creative professional building your career right now, constantly being online or on social media isn't optional…it’s basically part of the job. Post consistently, reply to comments, stay visible, check your numbers, respond to DMs. It never ends.

The research on what this does to our nervous system shows that chronic smartphone use is linked to elevated cortisol (our primary stress hormone). Constant notification interruptions fragment our focus and lowers our ability to do deep creative work. I was appalled when I saw the research that the average person checks their phone 96 times a day. 96. 9-6. Literally almost 100. No wonder everyone feels so fried all the time.

For an artist or creator managing their own career, that number is probably more.

We're not imagining it when we feel creatively drained after being online. Social media feeds are literally competing with our brains for the same resources we need to make good work.

How would David function?

This is honestly my biggest question when looking at his experiment.

This is the answer we don't fully know yet which is part of what makes the experiment so interesting.

He'll presumably need to figure out how people reach him in emergencies, how he works, etc.

He has a Substack and a website, so someone or something is going to keep the lights on but the mechanics of it are part of what he's working out in real time. I imagine someone may be helping him to navigate the world without screens and help him check his mail, respond to texts, etc.

The same model for artists + creators

What’s crazy is that I’ve actually thought about an extreme version of this for artists and creators a few times but didn’t think it was actually possible to execute.

Hear me out…

I know this is extreme…and completely changes the dynamic of how an artist would release + market their music, but what if an artist actually scheduled their entire year in advance and then disconnected?

For example, imagine an artist recorded enough music to release for an entire year. Let’s say they wanted to drop singles every 2 weeks and planned on releasing 26 songs. They get 26 songs done, cover artwork, and content for those releases all in advance. Every single element to each release was covered. I know I know…doing something like this could literally take an entire year’s worth of preparation but hear me out…it technically is possible.

Now imagine they uploaded each song with its respective metadata to their distributor (ie Tunecore, Distrokid, etc) and confirmed that each release was approved and successfuly ingested. In theory, there would be no reason why an artist couldn’t schedule their releases a year in advance.

Now comes social media - with the content already finished, the artist schedules every single post for an entire year on social media. I know this sounds crazy but again…hear me out lol. They schedule the teaser post, out now posts, etc all in coordination with the music release schedule. TikTok has a native scheduler now. Instagram's Meta Business Suite handles Reels. Twitter has built-in scheduling.

One of the things that still needs to be done manually is pitch to Spotify editorial through Spotify for Artists but maybe an assistant or social media coordinator can handle that.

YouTube videos get uploaded in advance too - for an entire year everything gets scheduled. In theory, an artist and their team could schedule all of these things, completely detach from the matrix, and have their automations do the releasing and posting for them. They would legitimately have no clue how anything is performing or doing unless someone told them.

Now…I realize there is a lot of downside to this extreme version lol.

If something goes wrong with a release, you won’t know.

If a social media post misfires, you won’t know.

You wouldn’t be engaging with fans who comment or engage with your posts if you step away and don’t check it.

If a song actually picks up steam and connects on some level, you’d likely miss the moment because you weren’t aware of it to amplify it.

All of these things are true but some elements of this are still applicable - in theory, if you really wanted to, you could do your own version this.

Creators can too in theory - they could schedule their YouTube videos and social media posts for a year. They would just miss the ability to respond and really connect with their audience.

I had actually tried a mini version of this with this newsletter last year. I scheduled 3 weeks worth of newsletter content in advance, along with accompanying social media posts. I let everything fly and didn’t check the engagement on anything until after those 3 weeks. I had no idea what was happening in real time - if a post went viral, if something really stuck, etc.

It was genuinely one of the most freeing moments I’ve had in a long time. I was able to completely disconnect from the outcome - it didn’t matter how each post performed because I couldn’t look at it.

If it crushed? Awesome.

If it flopped? Oh well, I didn’t know either way.

While that may not be good for engagement and best practices, it was an experiment in still being able to have the outward facing “engine” on still disconnecting internally for a bit.

Incorporating elements of this could really help free up time and headspace for artists and creators to live their lives. Now…I know this is almost impossible for an artist who’s livelihood depends on music. You have to engage, check the numbers, etc because your livelihood depends on it. But what if it didn’t? What if it was a side hustle or passion project and you just wanted to test something out in a healthier way?

Building your own version

While most people don’t have the luxury of completely going off the grid, there is a real list of things you can implement.

1. Scheduling tools. Buffer, Later, and Metricool let you batch content once or twice a week and auto-publish on schedule. You don't need to be on your phone in real time posting something. Schedule it all on Sunday and be set for the week. Most artists who do this say their content gets better too because they're not posting reactively out of anxiety.

2. App time limits. Screen Time on iPhone and Digital Wellbeing on Android let you cap daily use per app. When Instagram hits its limit, you have to actively choose to override it. That pause interrupts the autopilot of doomscrolling.

3. Greyscale mode (this has been a gamechanger for me). Go to Settings → Accessibility → Display → Color Filters and turn your screen black and white. it sounds minor but it’s not. Our brains chase bright colors and associate it with dopamine. Remove the color and remove the dopamine.

4. Delete the app, keep the access. Delete Instagram and TikTok off your phone and only access them through a browser. The experience is clunky enough that you'll stop mindlessly opening them, but you can still post and check in when you need to. It adds friction on purpose.

5. Batch your communication. Pick two windows per day (for ex: 11am and 5pm) and only respond to DMs and emails then. The world will not end lol. Most things are not as urgent as they feel in the moment and you'll be more present.

6. No-phone zones. The studio is an obvious one. But also the bedroom - charge your phone outside. Our first and last hours of the day are some of the highest-leverage creative time we have. Don't let them default to scrolling.

7. Physical alarm clock. Genuinely underrated. If your phone is your alarm, it's the first thing you touch every morning. Get a $15 clock and remove that entirely.

8. Protect your first hour. Opening Instagram before you've made anything tends to set a particular tone for the day. An input-first morning is a different day than a creation-first morning. A lot of artists treat that first hour as protected (no phone) and describe it as the most productive shift they made all year.

David is doing the extreme version of this: step fully away from screens, trust the infrastructure he builds, and measure what happens to his brain and body when the noise stops. I’m very curious to see how his experiment progresses and what happens.

Most of us can't do the entire thing but we can still create our own version.

Hopefully this was helpful on your journey.

Thanks for reading, until next time.

_{The Vault}

 1) Emergent - my cousin actually introduced me to this one! It’s similiar to Lovable, a platform that can be used for building web applications with AI but Emergent has more integrations. For example, it recently just integrated with Claude Sonnet 4.5 More info HERE