So there's been a bunch of chatter in recent years about reducing distraction at work...at least when we're not being all collaborative-y, getting loopy on dry-eraser fumes and all that knowledge-pollen we're sharing while singing "Kumbaya" in some corporate war-room.
Turning off your cell phone, powering down the IM client, signing out of social media, even checking out of the digital Hotel California otherwise known as email--that's how I usually understand "unplugged" working.
But what would happen if we also pulled the plug on our workstations?(Assuming that they can run off batteries, of course--regular PCs don't take kindly to that sort of thing.) Human value-systems shift drastically when something previously taken for granted becomes scarce. I can't imagine that electrical current is any different.
I, working on this 2009-vintage Dell would be lucky to see half the battery life of, say, a new-ish Macbook Air. But...would that make a difference in productivity? That's the interesting question.
Maybe, when we know that we need to go heads-down on some chunk of work, we should think about turning that battery indicator into a hourglass. (And, yes, I'm thinking about that scene from The Wizard of Oz.) Scarcity clarifies...and while not the mother of invention, is frequently is the midwife.
