Where were you when the lights went out?

A colleague just posted an update about her workplace this afternoon :

No servers at work, so no phones, computers or internet... Manager is talking about using pens & paper... retraining on a Friday arvo!

You know the feeling - when the network is down or the power is off. 

We go to do things automatically, habitually. 'Oh, I'll look that up on the inter....oops, no power...' or 'I'll send him an email about ... oh yeah, no servers'

There's a film from the late 1960s called 'Where were you when the lights went out' with Doris Day and a cast of other greats who were a little stuck when a huge blackout impacted millions of people. 

When a communication technology we rely on stops, breaks or shuts down, what do you do?

Do you simply sit and wait it out? Or go for a coffee? Or sit, chat, wander around and .... well.... wait?

I think that a few moments, minutes, hours without modern communication technology is the ideal time to literally retrain your brain. 

YES! Get the pens and paper out.

1. Sketch out some thinking about that project you're working on
2. Draw up the pros and cons of that decision you still haven't made
3. Recap the key points from the stakeholder workshop you were in
4. Bullet point the top 3 actions you'll follow up on tomorrow
5. Doodle while you just r-e-l-a-x

You don't need to be able to draw to make great use of analogue tools. You just need to make use of the tools, more often than you're probably doing now. 

They will unlock some new ways of thinking, seeing and processing; if you involve someone else in your conversation you'll be collaborating, working together and thinking; and you'll likely see some possibilities that you'd missed previously. 

Rather than it being an inconvenience, see it as a gentle force to develop.

It's like the acronym I heard yesterday: AFGO - another freakin' growth opportunity!