When I Was Cut Off And Out At Sea...

My family and I recently had the great experience of taking a trip to Alaska on a ship. As with all vacations, it was a break that allowed us to relax, enjoy the company of others, eat and drink well, as well as enjoy a slower pace of life. In addition to the cathartic aspects of the experience, Alaska proved to be most naturally beautiful destination we have ever seen.

Because we were on a ship, we had two different days at sea where we were "off of the grid," which is to say out of cell range for smartphone coverage. We were without internet, without phone service, without emails, without text messages, without podcasts. Finding myself in this mode made me pause.

How long had it been since I had spent a full day without these things? I considered that it had been seventeen years since I had gone a full 24 hours without connectivity to the internet.

The experience caused me to have a few reflections.

Before moving on, let me paint a picture on how I use mobile technology. I am what might be called a "power-user" of mobile tech. My phablet, a Samsung Note 3, is within my reach at virtually all times. It is next to me when I go to sleep and is what I look at before my feet hit the floor in the morning. I use four social media channels on a daily basis, without fail. Other than not taking it out at the table where I am eating with others and not using it while driving, I have very few parts of my life declared as "never use your mobile device." Because of this, being off of the grid is not something I did with great ease. Honestly, it was a complete and utter interruption of all of my routines and the way I interact with the world around me.

Now, back to those observations:

• I thought about one thing at a time - While off of the grid, I had periods of time pass where I would sit in a chair watching the ocean go by, lounge alone under the sun or enjoy the company of family and friends. I didn't go to my mobile device once. The continuity of my thoughts was something that felt both unfamiliar and yet very welcome. I was not thinking about more than one thing at a time, which had become my default mentality, it appears.
• I had more of people and they had more of me - The conversations I had with people were more in-depth and were more nuanced. Without the additional set of data that my mobile device offered me back on land, I had time to focus singularly on the conversation at hand. Since this was also the case with those with whom I was talking, we shared more thoughts with each other than we would have otherwise.
• My powers of recall have changed - More than once during the trip, a group of us were in a conversation where we couldn't recall something or someone. "Who was that guy in that movie?" was one of those questions that we asked. Our normal mode of answering that was to bat around possible answers for about two minutes, then rely on a mobile device to find the answer. When we found ourselves without that option, we paused on a few questions that we simply couldn't recall. Taking this into consideration, has our collective ability to recall factoids become softer due to years of Googling?

Now, don't get the incorrect impression that any lasting transformation took place in how I use my mobile device. When I got within range of a WiFi signal, my singular goal was to download everything I had been cut off from. It bordered on an obsession, candidly, where I could focus on nothing else until I had updated my phablet with what I had been "missing."

With that said, I authentically enjoyed and benefited from my experience being off of the grid.

What did I discern from this experience that may have business value?

1. By having a device that allows us to perpetuate the myth that we are more productive by doing multiple things at once, we likely have diminished our overall effectiveness and developed a diminished attention span.
2. Carving out some time on a daily basis where we are not looking at a screen of any sort could be advantageous to our productivity. What if each of us took an hour during every workday to step back from our devices just to think? Time to think through what we might be missing because of task saturation? What if we had a project or team meeting once a week with only people?
3. Despite the many real benefits of having mobile technology as part of the modern workplace, there is also a price to pay by often giving many things a fraction of our attention span, as opposed to giving one thing at a time our complete focus. We may perceive that we are getting more done, but the question arises - is quality suffering, overall?

Coming out of this experience, I have committed to spending an hour a day free of a screen. It has been great so far! This hour is filled with intention, focus and connection to other peoples. I have started to call it "Real Time."

We will see how it goes. I trust I, my family and my clients will all feel some uplift from this change.

If you have the occasion to have a day off of the grid by being forced into it by your location, as was I, or if you end up there through a new resolution to lead your life in a different way, enjoy it! It is likely to leave you a more relaxed and effective human being.

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