Tarang Bhargava

In the modern scenario we are need the internet to get our work done. This generation of employees are those who have been used to having computers at work always and it is a wonder to note that for several generations in the past people worked without computers, internet, telephones etc. It is unbelievable that these people were productive at work.

In the past when I was employed I would enjoy the time I got due to server collapse leading to inaccessibility of internet. This was a great alibi to take the much needed interval at work and that too with a clear conscience. But now in present day scenario if a server goes down it is a big menace and more so in the kind of business I am involved with. Server collapses sour up my feelings and increases my heartbeat and makes me sweat. To sum up I feel totally lost and helpless without internet.

Last week there was a server breakdown for almost five hours continuously and I had no clue what to do. But I somehow dug up in my files and found couple of assignments that could be done without internet and somehow spent the rest of the day. These projects are among those which we generally postpone thinking that we will do it later. But recently I came across an article which told me how to use time productively when internet was inaccessible.

One can do lots of things and not feel tensed of paranoid about internet being down. These things are not pastimes but productive work projects which can yield profitable results. Internet outage time is the best time to take up all those trivial tasks you left thinking of doing later. Responding to old emails, reading work related magazine and newspaper articles, chatting up with colleagues and even taking a long coffee break just to enjoy the flavour of coffee as it descends down from lips to tongue down into the stomach through the throat and gullet.

Another task one can effectively achieve during an internet disconnection is to optimize your working space in the computer. Housekeeping your files, putting them in the right folders, creating new folders for new projects or recent ones, deleting junk or old unusable files, uninstall programmes which you think have far outlived their utility, update your contact list. Once you get on to doing these things you will be surprised to see how much you could achieve despite internet being down. These are things which are easy, routine and small but we never sit down to do it because we are usually in front of the computer on the internet, either checking e-mail or just simply browsing.

In the current fast paced workplace scenario where retrace has taken over our lives, an internet server collapse may actually be a boon in disguise. We will get time to stop and evaluate where we are headed towards. This will provide the much time for ourselves, this may be the only time we get. It is interesting to note that most of us prefer to browse the internet for trivia than do any productive work offline like filing our reports or updating our address book. Strange isn't it?

Srinidhi RV. Lakhanigam is a travel writer, creative resource and freelance consultant.