The Power in Connectivity…And Being Unplugged…

Interesting week last week here, Friends….

Huge storm blew through the northeastern part of the US this week and, boy, did we catch the brunt of it.

We live near the ocean, and, as I have written here before, we are in a corridor that is prone to getting hit with high winds and flooding from time to time.

This one was particularly bad, leaving trees and downed utility lines all over – and days later our entire area is still recovering.

We are fortunate to have a generator, so we had it better than most. We had enough electricity and heat to be comfortable. But, the biggest inconvenience, by far, was the loss of internet access.

Sitting in my home office trying to get work done with very spotty cell phone service, but no data services whatsoever. I was without email, text, Slack or video conference. I had electricity, but no power.

It was yet another reminder of how constant connectivity has quickly transformed how we operate and communicate. Sure, we can go on vacations or consciously take extended breaks from being online from time to time, but in those instances, we are choosing to unplug in order to recharge.

But this week, it was an abrupt separation from the workflow. There was no preparation or delegation of duties to keep things running smoothly. There were things to do.

So it was basically as if I was transported back in time. I was “working from home” early 1980s style. My computer was essentially relegated to word processor status. My smartphone was a fancy cordless phone with video games on it.

If I only had my rabbit ears antenna attached to the TV, I probably could have had Donahue in the background….

Being largely unplugged from the daily work and my colleagues was a bit jarring. As someone who usually has a pretty set daily calendar, I honestly didn’t really know what to do with myself.

There were some projects I had put on the backburner and some prep for an upcoming meeting that required my creative thought and attention. With the cacophony of the daily schedule, these had sat as open tabs in my browser, open applications in my desktop background.

Free from the constant pinging, scrolling, web surfing and the Google Meets, I suddenly found myself with nowhere to go and a large block of open time on my schedule. All I could do was think and type.

It was great. Whereas I would normally do these types of projects after work hours, I was able to put some solid focus on them when I was most fresh. I found I was able to be significantly more thorough and creative in my thought process and the results exceeded my expectations. I produced some good work.

Round the clock connectivity is intended to make our lives easier – easier to communicate, easier to collaborate, easier to gain access to information and goods and services. This can be very powerful when you need it.

But I think I found this week that our reliance on connectivity makes us a lot dumber and less thoughtful as well. Our brains are constantly being stimulated that we allow ourselves little time for deeper thought.

We allow the power of convenience to take higher priority over our power of our minds. Our connectivity may be worldwide, but it is really just a few pixels deep. We are clearly missing out on more regular, much deeper, connections to our thoughts and creativity.

Within a few days, I found myself transported back to the future. Power and internet was restored at our house. People can once again could reach me by text, email and Slack and my schedule quickly filled back up with Google Meets and Zooms.

Will I make more time in my schedule to disconnect and just think and type more often? I don’t know….is there an app for that?

Hope this finds you all safe and sound – have a great weekend and Happy Halloween everyone!

XOXO

Dave

This was the October 30, 2021 intro to my weekly "Friends of Dave" newsletter, which is accompanied by interesting links I curate each week. If you would like to see past full issues, please click here >>> https://www.getrevue.co/profile/davidafrankel