When the Power Went Out… Everything Turned On
What a dirty basement, a sleeping cat, and zero notifications taught me about focus.
Last Friday, I did what I’ve been trying to do more consistently this year – I went into the office. Structured environment. Focused time. A clear separation between work and home.
Except… none of that happened.
Because when I arrived, the entire building was without power. No lights. No Wi-Fi. No hum of productivity. So after bumping around in the dark to retrieve my planner, I got back in my car and headed home…with a bit of dread.
My home office isn’t exactly what you’d call inspiring.
It’s in the basement. The drop ceiling tiles have seen better days. It’s a little dusty. It’s quiet in a way that feels more forgotten than focused. Since opening our downtown office, it’s mostly become a hangout spot for my cats. Not exactly the environment you picture when you think “high- performance workspace.”
But I sat down anyway. And something unexpected happened. I got more done in a few hours than I had in days.
Less Noise.
Better Work.
Not everything deserves your attention.
Silence the notifications that don’t move work forward.
Schedule focus like you schedule meetings.
If it’s not protected,
it won’t happen.
Fewer platforms,
better thinking.
Every new channel divides your attention.
Close the tabs.
Finish the thought.
Multitasking is just unfinished work.
Fast responses
don’t build great work.
Clear thinking does.
The Difference Wasn’t the Space … It was the absence of noise and the ability to focus. Deeply focus.
No ASANA notifications.
No staff or hallway interruptions.
No constant pings pulling my attention in different directions.
Just work.
At one point, one of my cats was asleep on the desk. My 60-pound sulcata tortoise wandered by looking for a carrot. I took a break on the couch with a snack.
Something else I didn’t expect was the calm I felt. Not rushed. Not reactive. Not mentally jumping ahead to the next thing. Just present in the work in front of me.
The Real Disruption Isn’t What We Think
A recent piece by Lisa Resnick of Dandelion on communication overload (worth the listen) reframed something many of us are feeling…how the sheer number of platforms competing for our attention is what’s actually exhausting us. And she’s right.
We’ve normalized an environment where everything feels urgent. Every message expects a response. Every notification pulls us away from what we’re doing. We think we’re multitasking. But we’re really just switching—constantly. And that switching comes at a cost.
So that Friday was a reset.
When the inputs stopped, the work got better. And so did I. The constant low-level urgency I didn’t even realize I was carrying…was gone.
It made me realize something I hadn’t fully acknowledged:
It’s not that we don’t have time to do the work.
It’s that we rarely carve out the uninterrupted space to think.
What does this mean for how we work? Our best work – strategy, storytelling, creative – doesn’t come from reacting. It comes from thinking. And thinking requires space.
So I didn’t plan for a day without power, but it forced me to do something I probably needed.
It was a reminder that sometimes the most productive thing you can do isn’t doing more. It’s hearing less.