Murphy's Law Working
Last week I had a small IT hick-up and had to reset my computer. While I was staring at the progress bars and only occasionally hit 'ENTER' for the downloads and installations to proceed, I contemplated that besides all the configuration that needed to be done again to become productive (Outlook, Powerpoint, file structures, software installations, etc.), I would have to recreate some of the work I had lost because it had not been backed up yet - no lives in danger sure; only a few hours of my lifetime wasted. Other than that all incoming work would also queue up during the downtime until my PC would be up and running again. So much for the grim outlook of the potential devaluation of my work time. Instead of banging my head into a wall, I made a different plan: I focused on getting as much done as possible in the meantime.
Power of Pen and Paper
Luckily I always have pen and paper with me, mostly because I like to scribble. There was a time when I thought it was most efficient -and most cool- to avoid pen and paper altogether. For several years I took all my notes on electronic devices. A few years back however, I rediscovered the charm of pen and paper. One of the milestones on that journey certainly was an outstanding seminar to create flipcharts. I had never really used flipcharts before mainly for two reasons: First, from a consultant's perspective flip charts don't have the right format: as a consultant you learn to think in 4:3 or 16:9 layouts. More about that further down. Second, I absolutely adore the authentic feeling of writing on a rough surface that cannot be easily erased with one click. This also makes me think before I start and write or draw something. Writing in my paper journal and writing a post for this blog are two entirely different experiences. Needless to say that I enjoy both, however in different ways. Paper is more informal and authentic. I still write letters with my own hand and use pen and paper. It's more basic and gives writing a more personal touch.
Layout: a Question of Conditioning
In school I was taught to write from left to right and from top to bottom of a page, usually in the A5 or A4 format. Even at university the papers I had to hand in were usually in an A4 format. In professional life I had to recalibrate my brain to a horizontal layout. In the military we used sketches of landscapes and for tactics training all the time. Later in consulting I can only remember a few projects, where any deliverables were in MS Word format, instead of in MS Excel or -almost always- in MS Powerpoint. The fact that I came to prefer a horizontal layout, like the one I am used to from watching films or playing video games, still has not changed much. Whiteboards (and also blackboards, in case those still exist) were in line with my perception, that charts and graphs should ideally be modelled horizontally instead of from top to bottom. At the same time I have tilted to using the book layout more often as well. Even on paper I still create charts in a horizontal layout - my brain has simply been conditioned like that over decades. The big difference is that nowadays I use paper more often. If I had the choice in a meeting I would always use paper instead of digital tools. It's just the higher degree of freedom that I appreciate and also the simplicity of the principle.
Getting Things Done
In the end I successfully used the downtime of my PC to create some notes and put down a lot of ideas that had been circling around in my head for quite a while. Later, when my computer was ready to roll again, I had gained momentum because I had already scribbled down the solution to all the work I thought I could only do on a PC. The creation of charts works much faster, if you start with an idea and put it on paper. You won't waste any time on useless things like forms, colours, format and so on. You'll just collect ideas and create a 'minimum viable product' - charts you might also send to colleagues via mail as a picture to give their first feedback. I regard it a much more productive way to create content, than to start on a PC. Sadly I am sure this lesson will not stick with me for very long and at some point I might fall back into the old habit and start with a powerpoint again, instead with pen and paper. In that case, I hope my next computer-crash will remind me to think of alternatives.
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