I spent most of the last 10 days in the wilderness of Vancouver Island. Where there is no WIFI. (No – or very limited – cell service, either).
The no WIFI constraint engendered two noticeable changes in the adults.
First, it was easy to embrace disconnection from technology, like checking work email or weighing in on a spicy, World-Cup-related group chat.
Second, nobody was able to quickly check anything on their phone in the flow of a conversation or as part of a thought process.
The ability to focus will probably become one of the most critical skills in the years ahead, followed closely by being able to stay present IRL.
Here are two examples of how to embrace the constraint of no WIFI and what I learned from the experience.
Easy disconnection
Leaving work was tough for me this time. Our team has several high profile, critical-path projects on the go, so a big part of me wanted to stay connected and help the work along. This was not possible, giving the no WIFI constraint. This was also the wrong thinking because I work with super talented people, we co-created a really good plan with really clear milestones to complete while I was away, and the decision-making authority was also very clear. While this is good pre-vacation-preparation in general, it was very easy to execute the plan because I had no WIFI; there was no temptation to jump into my inbox or poke around our PowerPoint deck.
Okay there was some WIFI and semi-accessible cell service.
My friend Chris drove to the entrance of the park where we were camping to watch the last 10 minutes of an awesome World Cup game. My friend Kurt and I walked up to the only part of Strathcona Lodge that had WIFI to, you guessed it, watch Canada lose to Morocco and England eek out a victory against Mexico. There may have been some emails checked. Who can say?
My point is that the effort required to break the no WIFI constraint was not insignificant, so we had to time box (or plan) our day around the short amount of time we wanted to use it.
What I learned is that planning to be offline enables others to step into their power (and probably mitigates bias and reduces risk be distributing ideas) and that constraints can encourage better habits (David Epstein already knew this).
Reactivity and impulse control
“What was the name of that heist movie in France with Robert de Niro?”
“How big is the population of Cabo Verde?”
“Has any national leader ever interfered with the World Cup before?”
These were all questions that we had to discuss, brainstorm, and hypothesize because nobody could check for the answers on their phone (for the record, I knew it was Ronin and 550,000 people, but we had to wait until a visit to the Lounge before learning that a head of state did intervene in a World Cup decision in the 1960s).
The convenience and power of our devices make it hard for humans to embrace boredom and just sit with our thoughts. With the answer to so many questions at our fingertips it is easy to get addicted to quick hits of information-fueled-dopamine from our devices.
We noticed how much we picked up our phones (because they were both always in our pockets and totally useless because there was no WIFI). I noticed the adults who never did because they had trained themselves to be more focused (I also noticed the ones who always had their phones and were trying to squeeze out every bit of information using spotty cell signals).
I learned that physical constraints on devices – leave it in the car, put it in a drawer in the kitchen at bedtime, give it to a trusted person to keep it away from you or change your passwords for 10 hours – unlock presence, focus, and creativity. Jotting down a couple of notes or reading a couple of pages while we’re away from our screens can inform more purposeful and practical scrolling and searching when we are back online.
