Lessons From an Internet Blackout

Over the last week I have been in a state of internet-withdrawal. My telecoms provider botched our installation leaving me with only cellular access or “borrowed” wifi. While there have been the obvious set-backs to my productivity, I have also been given an important lesson in how I can get more done when the line is finally back up.

  1. Schedule, batch and organize - While I have my PDA and 3G connection that is only useful for priority emails. My plan is ludicrously expensive and charges by the megabyte. In order to do any sizable downloads right now I need to drive to my parents house. This has meant I have had to be careful to do all my downloads in one session. Planning my activity this way has taught me to be more organized with my work and also highlighted how much flitting about between tasks I ordinarily do. I might not go to the extremes Tim Ferris recommends but I will definitely be scheduling email time rather than being “always on” from now on.
  2. Quit Yak Shaving - This is a phrase I picked up a while ago from Seth’s Blog and it certainly rings true for me.

    Yak Shaving is the last step of a series of steps that occurs when you find something you need to do.
    “I want to wax the car today.”
    “Oops, the hose is still broken from the winter. I’ll need to buy a new one at Home Depot.”
    “But Home Depot is on the other side of the Tappan Zee bridge and getting there without my EZPass is miserable because of the tolls.”
    “But, wait! I could borrow my neighbor’s EZPass…”
    “Bob won’t lend me his EZPass until I return the mooshi pillow my son borrowed, though.”
    “And we haven’t returned it because some of the stuffing fell out and we need to get some yak hair to restuff it.”
    … And the next thing you know, you’re at the zoo, shaving a yak, all so you can wax your car.

    Even though everyone has been understanding about my predicament I have gone to stupid lengths to maintain my normal schedule, getting more and more mired in the process. Rather than descending into such a spiral of events we need to be aware of the phenomenon and allow ourselves to be less than perfect occasionally in order to not get trapped.

  3. Arrange resources before they are needed - My cell connection has been a life-saver but the fees are stacking up massively and the sudden lack of internet connectivity should really not have thrown me a curve ball like it has. I need to sort out a backup line with sufficient bandwidth and without the Don Corleone style payment plan. What resources do you depend on day to day and what can you put in place as a backup? Better to sort them out now before you need them!
  4. This is why we have offline tools - I recently wrote about how Web2.0 was breaking into the market of desktop applications. Wow has this experience taught me that we still need offline tools!
  5. Laptops are wonderful, but make sure you have all your data - I have fully transitioned to using my MacBook for everything. This was already a trend before this most recent connectivity debacle but now I am sure I don’t want to go back to the desktop machine. This does mean though that I need to start carrying more data around so I will be investing in external storage and rigging my older machine up for remote access. Much as I am trying to be more organized it is inevitable I will hook up to the Starbucks wifi only to find I have left something behind.

How do you cope when your line goes down? Do you have contingency plans? I would appreciate any advice you have in the comments!

Posted on October 2, 2007 by Chris Garrett 
Filed Under Productivity

Comments

8 Responses to “Lessons From an Internet Blackout”

  1. Quick Links @ chrisg.com on October 2nd, 2007 2:14 pm

    [...] Lessons From an Internet Blackout - Over at Codswallop I have written up the lessons I have learned from not having any internet access. Hopefully British Telecom will fix the botched line today … [...]

  2. Lessons From an Internet Blackout on October 2nd, 2007 2:44 pm

    [...] You can read the rest of this blog post by going to the original source, here [...]

  3. Jack @ The Tech Teapot on October 2nd, 2007 2:48 pm

    There’s life in Microsoft Office yet then Chris :) You can’t beat a good text editor too for creating your blog posts.

  4. Chris Garrett on October 2nd, 2007 7:42 pm

    With you there Jack, it’s great for fixing the old grammar and speeeelling too ;)

  5. Amrit Hallan - HowToPlaza on October 3rd, 2007 5:46 pm

    When my DSL isn’t working I can always switch to the phone line and use the dialup connection and when that too doesn’t work…it often happens…I remain offline and do all the work that I can do, and call up clients who are waiting to hear from me. Apart from email and surfing all my applications are desktop-based.

  6. Nathan Ketsdever on October 3rd, 2007 6:13 pm

    I think the main advantage of a desktop is that it would get the rotating beachball of death less than a laptop might. (assuming you were comparing price equivalent models)

    Although, you can’t take desktops to conferences, coffeshops, and libraries.

  7. Chris Garrett on October 3rd, 2007 9:00 pm

    @Amrit - Unfortunately I don’t have any dialup. In fact I wouldn’t know where to start hooking up the macbook, I guess it would need a USB modem ..

    @Nathan - I used to have a docking station for my dell laptop, do they do them for macbooks?

  8. Stop Drinking from the Fire Hose : Codswallop on October 11th, 2007 1:20 pm

    [...] have spoken about pulling back from time leaching activities, but my recent enforced absence from the internetstubes made me truly realize how much time wasting I actually do in a [...]

Leave a Reply