On Being Unplugged

“Do not live in the world, in distraction and false dreams…” – The Buddha

I biked to work this morning, like I do most mornings. This morning was a hot one, with the day predicted to get even hotter.

I climbed the three flights of stairs to my floor, sweating more than I care to think about given the absence of showers at my place of business.

I satdown in my chair and was about to “wake up” my sleeping laptop when I noticed this:

That is a picture of the empty dock where I was expecting my laptop to be.

Suddenly, I remembered where it was. I had worked from home yesterday and had managed to leave it there today. It was, ironically, in the same cabinet as my bike bag. In fact, I had to move the laptop out of the way this morning in order to get to it.

I contemplated biking back home, but the time required and the heat of the day compelled me to stay put. It was then that I started to wonder what a work day (well half a day, because I bike home for lunch) would be like without a computer.

I thought about what I use my computer for: email, setting up meetings, creating documents and searching for things on the internet. Yes, there’s the occasional Facebook, shopping and trip planning, but really, the bulk of my time is spent doing work.

No doubt, the computer is helpful, and I could not do my job without it. It does, however, have a downside; it demands constant attention and provides quite a lot of distraction; it encourages multi-tasking and the associated problem of doing a mediocre and inefficient job at many different things as opposed to focusing on doing a good job one task at a time. The biggest problem is that constantly being on the computer puts you in a reactive state of mind. You end up spending your time responding instead of thinking.

On this morning without a computer I have re-read my personal mission statement, values, roles and goals. I have reviewed my work objectives and have planned what I want to accomplish over the next week.  I am handwriting the draft of this very post with  a pen on paper and when I have my laptop back, I will type and publish it.  I am spending time thinking about what I want to accomplish and how I want to accomplish it.  Al in all, it has actually been a productive morning. 

Had to wrap this post up though because my smartphone was flashing that I had a message…