“Did you reboot?” has been the staple question of IT support staff for so long that many of us reboot before even calling. I have found that when my PC acts erratically, I reboot, and that usually clears things up. This can also happen with your smartphone.
It seems that things get “stuck” in a computer’s register, or some part of the software, or an application gets stuck in some mode or setting. Restarting the device or unit sometimes does the trick. This also works on a washing machine. Mine got stuck in a cycle, rinsing and rinsing and rinsing and never getting out of the cycle. I looked up the problem online and found that the machine needed to reboot, accomplished by unplugging it for 10 minutes and then plugging it back in.
I think of rebooting as “flushing out the system.” Like cleaning the exhaust vent for your clothes dryer; it runs smoother once that is done.
You may have experienced a project that totally occupies and preoccupies your mind. My wife Diane says that a project “consumes me.” I work on the project constantly: I wake up thinking about it, think about it all day, go to bed thinking about it and even wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it.
Not too long ago, I had a major and complex project consuming me.
But while working on the project, a series of unavoidable events occurred, filled my weekend, prevented me from working on the project. Since I couldn’t work on it, my mind was eventually freed from thinking about the project for a full two days. When I returned to work on Monday morning, I was able to finish the next step quickly — and without the gloomy aura.
It was as if that non-work weekend caused my brain to reboot.
Perhaps the reason for the fourth of the 10 Commandments, “Keep holy the sabbath,” is not just about obedience but for our own refreshing (rebooting): “Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female servant and the stranger may be refreshed.”[1]
I used to have one day a week that I would not use my PC. Usually a Saturday or Sunday, but it kept me from doing work and was, I admit, refreshing.
We need to refresh ourselves periodically, weekly works pretty well.
We need to reboot on a daily basis as well. Call it a “mini reboot.” I read about work/life balance, but I find this hard to do unless I separate my work from my home life, both spatially and mentally. The mental separation is the most difficult.
Back when we went into the office, we rebooted daily as we went home to a different environment — a different atmosphere. This was even more the case before PCs and the internet allowed us to bring work home.
One of my fond memories happened when I worked in New York City, before personal computers and the internet. I would take the Staten Island Ferry from Manhattan, where I worked, to Staten Island, where I lived. I would sit on the back of the ferry and watch the Lower NYC skyline fade into the background. I was able to mentally leave work while I watched it physically disappear.
Now, people who work from home don’t have such a commute. Work life and home life are blurred. Their commute might be to walk to the spare bedroom after stopping for coffee in the kitchen — a far cry from driving or taking public transportation to work and stopping at a coffee shop before riding an elevator to your floor. There is no longer a time nor a spatial separation between work and personal life. The old method of rebooting daily is gone, and a new one needs to be created.
In my opinion, we all need a means of rebooting our brains on both a weekly and a daily basis. What’s yours?
Grover M. Edie, FCAS, CERA, CPCU, MAAA, ARM, is the former Actuarial Review editor in chief, and continues his service as a member of the AR Working Group. After his weekend reboot, he is a consulting actuary for Huggins Actuarial Services, Inc.
[1] New King James Version of the Bible.
