Once upon a time when I had dial-up (it does seem like a fairy tale nowadays), I was used to not continuously having Internet. In fact, for fear of missing phone calls, I usually only stayed online for a total of two hours a day. However, since I've had broadband, as most savvy Internet users do, I have become rather dependent on the Internet. I know some people who don't use their computers at all if there is no Internet access. I personally find time without the Internet to be a great productive time due to lack of distractions.

1. Organize
My home directory gets a mess over time. Even worse is my downloads folder, which is where I dump everything I download in Firefox and KTorrent. However, when I have Internet access I never seem to get around to organizing everything into subdirectories. Before I organized last week, I had about 20 different folders and 50 or so stranded files. After a mere half an hour of work with no distractions, I again had everything in a neat and orderly fashion as you can see below.
My Home Directory [img]

2. Get Digital Pictures in Order
I like to tag, star, and label all of my digital pictures with a photomanagement application- namely digiKam. Regardless of what program you use, or even just a file manager, it can become a chore to get all of your digital photos sorted out and edited. When stuck without Internet, you have no excuse not to sort through the memories before you completly forget about each photograph. Depending on where you are, you may also want to print out a few photographs.

3. Customize
No matter what operating system you are, there are ways to customize your system to your liking. While without Internet, go ahead and see what all you can do from around your system without downloading anything. You may be surprised at what you can do… or what you can't. For instance, you can play around with your fonts, optimize your panel(s), or try out a new color scheme.

4. Catch up on E-Mails
E-Mails can begin to overwhelm. Assuming you use a desktop e-mail client, or possibly in the future G-Mail with Google Gears, you can easily get through many e-mails, as well as sort as respond to them. The same goes for RSS feeds.

5. Blogging
If you are a blogger such as myself, there is no better time to write a few blog posts than with no net. There are some disadvantages, such as not being able to search and find what you need to link to, but you can always do this before you post. If you are not a blogger, you can easily catch up on other types of writing or work as well.