Kaushik Sathupadi
Programmer. Creator. Co-Founder. Dad.
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What can you do before your battery runs out?

I mean like literally.

It was almost an year ago. I was working at Oracle. One day before leaving for work I check my mail. Nothing special. There was one mail though from my manager(Mike) asking me if I can get something done by end of the day. I remember replying to him “I’ll try”, packed my bag and left to office.

I live in Bangalore. In some ways it rocks. The morning traffic is definitely not one of them. It took me 1.5 hours to reach office - No worries. It was common. I reach my desk , take out the laptop and go .. shit, forgot to bring the laptop charger. Everybody else in my team was working from home and I was too shy to ask help from strangers. I briefly contemplate going back home but that’ll waste too much time. I decide - fuck it, let me try what I can do as long as the battery lasts.

Turns out that it was the most productive day as far I remembered. The battery going down was a real motivator. I wouldn’t waste my time on hacker news or keep logging into my gmail, twitter, reddit or even dontevenreply :). Not only did I finish my work in a couple of hours, but also returned home at noon with a satisfaction that only comes after a good day’s work. Before coming home I also took my wallpaper and added text “What can you do before your battery runs out?”

 

So try this now. Unplug your laptop charger. put it back in the backpack. What can you do now before your battery runs out?

Please check out my app Slow & Incremental - Personal Productivity by working on one step at a time
 
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