I’ve left my laptop at home the last few days. Work has been insanely better.

Tommy Young
Sep 7, 2018 · 1 min read

Accidentally the first day, and then mindfully the next two days. And what I found was a couple of different things.

For one, my bag was lighter. Score points for my back and shoulders.

Two, I was simply way more engaged in all my meetings throughout the days. Yes I had my phone with me all the time, but I can only do so much work-related activity on my phone while in a meeting so the urge to get distracted by the larger screen was simply not there. People noticed too. It’s respectful anyways not to bring a laptop into a meeting but this really nailed it for me.

Three, I found myself being way more productive actually at my desk, mainly because I had no choice but to use my 2 monitors and desktop which I can say without a doubt enables to me to be more effective and efficient than when I do those same tasks on my laptop.

Four, I just found myself context switching way less throughout the day. One less device or thing to be distracted by. This I think made me feel like I got more done in 2 days than I had in any week I can remember in recent memory.

I think I’m gonna start doing this for all meetings going forward. Let’s see.

Tommy Young

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Recovering human.