I recently experienced a common disaster when it just so happened that some sweet tea was accidentally poured onto my laptop. It all seemed fine at first until the liquid dried up and my keyboard became extremely sticky. Naturally, anyone’s primary concern would be the inability to quickly hide Facebook whenever a boss passes by, and that was mine too.
Given my 2-year love hate relationship with my Lenovo T420, including multiple breakdowns (PC’s, not mine), reoccurring issues, and additional business needs, I decided it’s finally time to ask for a different one from the IT department. The process of getting a new laptop, however, is just as horrendous as a bad breakup—tedious and painful. In a way, I should consider myself lucky that they ran of out of loaners as well.
There I was, left with this sticky, ill-functioned, rock-candy-like laptop for a week. I thought that carrying an external keyboard around campus makes no sense, so I made the courageous decision to attend all of my meetings "naked" (as in no laptop, not literally), with nothing but an old-fashion pen and notebook in hand. Being a tech person in a tech world, I know that was a gutsy move.
The experience, to my surprise, was refreshingly great. I feel a lot more engaged and thoughtful during meetings. Even for presentations that I would have normally considered irrelevant to my work, I found tremendous value in them and was inspired to have multiple project ideas.
What's going on? What's wrong with having an opened screen right in front of you during meetings?
1. Distraction: everyone is busy and we all try to use every bit of time slot we can to get work done. Seeing people sending and replying emails during meetings are so perverse that we don’t even bat an eye or think of it as being disrespectful. However, for many of us, it is difficult, if not impossible to adjust settings in our heads quickly and I find myself having to re-engage once my mind blanks out even for a minute.
Normally, this is what occurs:
"Justin, what are your thoughts on this?" Upon hearing my name, I would drag my head away from the screen and sheepishly look around the room. After two seconds of awkward silence, the typical me will slowly and painfully start off with "umm, I think XX brought up a good point” to give myself more time.
In contrast, what I’ve learned to do now is to engage a conversation from beginning to end. Not having a laptop allows me to tune in, instead of dropping out.
Daydreaming about your next Alaskan cruise or vacation in Hawaii? Maybe you feel the “urgent need” to get a head start on the flight tickets for a get-away that is actually 8 months down the road? Laptops provide such easy access to all the fun distractions from the outside world and they make it nearly impossible for us to resist these temptations. Want to know the best way to withstand such urges? Close the laptop.
2. Disrespect: whoever has had a chance to speak in a room while others are frantically typing away and shooting lasers with their eyes at their laptops will agree with me: it doesn't feel good. The most basic element of respect one can offer to another colleague is that you listen and engage in his or her conversation, and not secretly plan your next vacation thinking that no one would notice...
Of course, there are various reasons why you would want to keep you laptop on during meetings, such as for the purpose of presentation / sharing, actual note-taking, urgent fire-drills, (or those endless meetings that are held for no particular good reason. Hey! We are Corporate after all)... But let's face it, most of the time you don’t need this piece of machinery like you do with your iPhone (now that’s a different story!). And please keep in mind the perception you leave others with and the considerable consequences of your action.
And now, as I lay awake at night, waiting for the life-changing moment when IT approves of my request for a new laptop, I remind myself: no more laptop during meetings. This would be simply if only I could pull myself away from writing for our blog during meetings…
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