Going Off-Line

Last Monday I arrived at work and as usual pulled out my laptop, set it up on my desk, and went to grab the AC adapter out of the laptop case and much to my surprise - it wasn't there. I realized that I had forgotten it at home as I was doing work in the Living Room of my house the night before - and left it behind the couch. At first I thought - oh oh - what am I going to do for 2-3 hours - in the office with a "dead" computer.

It turned out to be a great 3 hours. I shut my door and completed a number of tasks:

1. Planned my week out
2. Rehearsed a presentation that I was doing the next day
3. Made some changes to a brochure that I had in the "creation" phase
4. Came up with 3 new ideas regarding an upcoming product launch

I actually felt invigorated by being unplugged - so to speak. I wasn't distracted by email, news, browsers, and electronic documents.

I think we sometimes become over connected and lose sight of our overall objectives. Try it sometime - leave your laptop in the case - it will still work when you plug it in after lunch.

In the meantime, let the creative juices flow and use a pen and paper - or sketch out some ideas you've been thinking about on your White Board.

Go Off-Line and discover.