Ignoring your Computer's Update Notification is dangerous

A few years back, I was preparing a critical presentation for my CEO. The preparation for this meeting went for more than 2 months, having multiple meetings with different stakeholders, starting from the collection of key data, analyzing and putting up in a presentable format. I had worked around 50+ iterations on the presentation. A night before the meeting, I was doing last moment cosmetic changes to my presentation deck. Overall, I was delighted with my work. As I was looking at the last time at the deck, I smiled, felt gratitude, was about to save the presentation and then wanted to sign off for the day. SUDDENLY a blue screen appeared on my Laptop, in a flash of seconds I realized that my laptop crashed. I restarted my computer, and to my dismay, all my hard work has completely gone to drains. My presentation file was corrupted and unable to retrieve it. The pain, anxiety, stress, frustration, fear you name it I was going through that, for about an hour I had a brain freeze, I didn’t know what to do. Since I had been working on the deck for months, I remembered almost every part of it. I started the presentation from the start, and it took my additional 4 hours to complete it. In the process, I had less sleep and had some effect on my delivery skill the next morning to my CEO and his staff. I carried the regret and frustration for several weeks, and the aftermath of the incident affected my productivity as well. Have you experienced something similar? I am sure you must have experienced something similar too.

I wished if I had kept my computer up to date with the latest technology with all the necessary patches and anti-virus. Not only would I have saved my work also had peace of mind, which we can’t put any price for it and would have improved productivity too.

Let me share with you some shocking statistics. 70% of the small business firm goes out of business within a year after a massive data loss. One of the most common complaints that I hear from my employees is that their computers are slow. If your PCs are slow or the applications habitually freeze or crash, it’s killing your employees’ productivity.

A recent study by the electronics company Sharp found that half of all office workers in the world said their slow computers were “restrictive and limiting,” and 38 percent said that modern technology would make them more effective, productive and motivated. The average office worker wastes 40 minutes per day because of slow technology. 

Think about the salaries that you are paying for your employees. Let’s say you’re paying an employee 360,000 a year. Assuming that employee works 2,000 hours per year, you’re paying an average 180/hour. If that employee loses an average 40 minutes per day due to a slow computer, you’re losing 120 daily, multiplied by 260 working days in a year.

That amounts to 32,000 of their annual salary that you’re basically flushing down the toilet. A new PC costs around the same, look at the productivity, peace of mind and motivation, doesn’t it make a good business sense?

In my experience, the first level of productivity starts by having an excellent infrastructure, today we all work mostly with technology be it a phone, tablet, or laptop. There are in build apps or third-party apps to check the amount of time we spend on the gadgets. On average, people spend over 6+ hours of screen time combined (phone, tablet, and laptop). Investing in the latest, up to date technology helps to stay ahead of the curve in terms of productivity.

Productivity is measured by way of doing more with the available resource, reducing wastage, reducing downtime. Technology plays a huge and vital role in being productive. In our endeavor to share our experiences, tips, tricks, processes, tools to help you realize your full potential, and being productive. Start with having a reasonably good infrastructure, a good up to date laptop and a reasonably good phone/tablet.