How do we stay productive when the power goes out?

There’s never a good time for load shedding, black-outs, or general power failures to happen. They just do and it’s the actual pits. At least with load shedding there are schedules that can sometimes help you plan around the power outages. But the rest? No such luck. As a South African, you’ll find that at some point in your life, you’ll face a ‘lights out’ situation when you’ve got things to do. Those are the moments that tend to be the least pleasant. Or the most frustrating, depending on which way you’d like to look at it.

Well, to help you stay sane, we’ve gathered a few tips that you can use to make the most of your time when there’s no electricity. We would say ‘in the dark’, but the power goes out at any time and we’re practical about the help that we dole out.

Work offline

Most of us use screens to do our work, so when the power goes (and with it Internet access) we tend to feel at a loss. But actually, a change in perspective could do wonders for your lateral thinking. So, instead of staring mindlessly at an empty screen, try staring mindlessly at an empty page in your notebook instead. You never know… Inspiration could strike and give new energy to a tricky project.

Or perhaps you’ll find a hidden doodling talent.

Release your inner bookworm

Who among us remembers reading books? Those things made out of great big wads of paper with lots of printed words on them and the appealing lack of a need for power? Remember them? They’ll keep your mind agile and entertained so that you don’t need to lose yourself when you can’t watch things online. In fact, it can be a lot of fun to visit different second hand book stores searching for titles that grab your fancy.

Schedule those meetings

There are a bunch of catch-ups, brainstorms, pow-wows, and workshops that you’ve missed or rain-checked in order to get on with work. But when the power’s down, you can’t be getting on with all that, so why not schedule all those meetings? Obviously it’ll suck not being able to use the cappuccino machine, but we’re sure that you’ll ‘power’ through anyway.

Discover the power in eating raw

Did you know that raw foods are incredibly good for you? And do you perhaps remember any of the promises that you’ve made to yourself about staying healthy? Well, now’s as good a time as any to get on with feeding your body the good stuff. Combine fresh fruits and veggies in interesting, raw combinations and stick the steak back in the freezer for when your stove’s working again…

Our final tip: Be extra careful on the roads

This doesn’t especially help you to stay productive, but it’s still a good tip nonetheless. You see, when the power’s out, we’ve found that there are more accidents on the road. Sometimes there are a few serious prangs, but mostly it’s little fender benders. Unfortunately, with the way cars are made now, even the little accidents are expensive to repair. Most people can’t actually afford it at all… But what they can afford, is a super cheap comprehensive car insurance in case someone skips their turn when the robots are out.

We hope this helps you stay busy and more cheerful the next time the electricity goes out!

 

 

Advice on Safe Driving during Power Outages and Load Shedding https://t.co/KfBuDVPfhT #ArriveAlive #RoadSafety #LoadShedding #Eskom @Eskom_SA pic.twitter.com/awuvdVHvLB

— Arrive Alive (@_ArriveAlive) June 24, 2019