We got the keys to our house last week. Hooray! Furniture has been disassembled, moved and reassembled. Appliances have been scoured off Gumtree, strapped to the back of the Ute and precariously driven home. Cutlery and crockery has been purchased. The dog is settling in. There is only one thing missing…. a working broadband connection.
I stuffed up. I assumed that connecting to an ISP meant someone in a back office switched on our account (the house already has a working phone line). The ISP has other ideas and is dispatching a subcontractor to test the line – while hedging their bets on whether the technician is actually needed.
It is required that you or someone else is home during the scheduled installation appointment.
A Telstra contracted technician will attend to your home.
You need to provide clear access to your “Network Boundary Point”.
In some cases the Telstra technician is able to complete the installation without needing your assistance or contacting you.
I originally scheduled the install for the afternoon of settlement day – the day money changes hands and the Real Estate Agent hands over the keys. After talking to the agent I realized my timeline left nothing to chance. Any glitch during settlement would mean and we wouldn’t be at home in time for the technicians appointment. Imagining a chain of dominoes crashing down around me I asked my ISP to push the install back a day. One day! Unfortunately this request took four days to action and pushed the install back two weeks.
Now I’m in the interesting position of trying to run my freelance design business offline. This has some instant disadvantages. For one, I can’t access crucial web-based tools like Kashoo (my accounting program), Trello (my task scheduler), and Google Docs (which I use to take notes, and access files that are too large to store on my MacBook Air). Two: it curtails all collaboration over email and Dropbox. Three: I while away the daylight hours listening to Hype Machine, podcasts and internet radio.
There are upsides too. When you primarily work from home it’s hard to strike a balance between work and play. Although I setup one of the spare bedrooms as an office, my MacBook Air serves as my primary computer for both my work and personal life. This alone makes it hard to completely shut off at the end of the day. Not having broadband at home provides a push to get out of the house and find somewhere with wi-fi. So far this week I’ve arrived at a local café before 7am each day; emailed clients, synced files and knocked out two productive hours of work. This action puts a physical distance between my work and home life and I get a well made coffee to boot.
My home is now in (semi)permanent1 airplane mode. The current projects I’m working on are graphic design based (oppose to web design) so I don’t need to be constantly connected to the internet. In fact, being offline forces me to plan my work better. Instead of defaulting to internet searches for inspiration I need to succinctly plan my day. Any internet crucial tasks I need to action first thing in the morning before switching off for the day. Overall it’s a good lesson in wants v needs, and being productive v being busy.
Which is why the stoics say that what blocks the path is the path. That what seems to impede action can actually advance it. And that everything is a chance to practice some virtue or something different than originally intended. And you never know what good will come of that. (Ryan Holiday)
1 – I’m not completely offline, I have 3G data on my phone and tether a few times a day to sync files and email clients.
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