Nine years ago I gave laptops to all of my employees. The productivity gains that happened when they took their laptops home with them to work for a couple extra hours a week was outstanding – totally worth the investment.
As a business coach, I suggest that you should get everyone in your business using a laptop. My MacBook Air has a 6-hour battery life and I can use it on flights, in the dark, and turn anywhere into my office.
Paper notes are a waste of time and resources. It drives me nuts watching employees sit in meetings handwriting all their notes, knowing many will go back to their desks to ‘type everything up.’
Some people don’t like others using laptops in meetings because they worry that they are checking email. A great little system to prevent that from happening is through the use of a ‘fine jar’. Allow anyone to call someone else out if they suspect them to be using email. If the person is checking email they put $2 into the fine jar. If they weren’t checking email, then the person calling them out pays $2. People will learn to not only avoid checking email in meetings, but to trust that using a laptop in meetings is actually hyper-effective and not a needless distraction.
pic: makezine
