Having typed high school essays on a typewriter (yes, it’s true), I remember life before email, iPhones, iPads, and those lovely blinking Blackberrys that stay on tables in people’s hands during meals. During most of my working life, email has been a necessary way to get more done during the course of a business day.
But lately, I’m growing to resent the time I spend looking at that black box that is the computer screen. The more I look at it, the less life I have outside of it. The scary thing is that your life atrophies while you are typing away at the black keys and you hardly notice. Suddenly when you get up from the desk, there are no people around you, no one to call, or to meet up with. You’ve shut your machine off and your entire world.

I know lots of people are ranting about this overly technological age and how we never have weekends anymore or holidays away from the office because of all our devices.

But it’s true.

I would rather spin my words into a manuscript (as I’m trying to eek out 15,000 more words on a deadline) or into a person’s ear than in those tiny Outlook envelopes that get sent around the company. Having worked at a multinational for a year and a half, I’m no longer going to evaluate my day by the number of messages left in any of my inbox(es).

Any suggestions on new measuring sticks for a productive day?

Mohana Rajakumar

Mohana has a PhD from the University of Florida with a focus on gender and postcolonial theory. She is the creator and co-editor of five books in the Qatar Narratives series, as well as the Qatari Voices anthology which features essays by Qataris on modern life in Doha (Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, 2010). Mohana has published several ebooks and academic titles. Check out her Amazon.com author page

    

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