I watched in dismay as my phone slipped out of my hand and plunged into the lake water next to the dock.
In an instant I was gripped with the sensation of impending doom as my mind went straight into the grief and loss of all my severed connections with both my friends as well as my clients. My heart sank like my cell phone and my stress level rose as I struggled to remember when was the last time I had backed it up? Or had it been configured with continuous backup? I couldn’t remember exactly.
Had I just lost all the data in my phone? How would I get back all the years of contacts and information stored there? I felt sick to the pit of my stomach.
For the next 48 hours it was as though I had lost the ability to think clearly. I was despondent, not knowing how I was going to function in my day-to-day life. My alarm was on my phone so how would I get up in the morning? I don’t have a watch, I use my phone so what was the time? Could I remember what was on my grocery list? Even if I got my hands on another phone I can’t call anyone from another phone because I lost my contact list. What’s the weather report? GPS directions? Forget it. I felt lost.
Once my phone was retrieved from the bottom of the lake and the protective casing removed it was placed in a bag of rice and left to dry for hours. It came back to life and a wave of relief ran over me. An hour later however my roommate asked me why I had not answered his texts and phone call? I glanced at my cell phone screen. It was completely black and unresponsive. My heart sank again.
Through the years I have coached my clients on the importance of self-care along with cell phone free time every day. Ultimately, they are thankful for the peace and quiet of this one action in their life.
But this was different. What if I could not retrieve my information? I felt so stressed.
I found out it would take up to three weeks to get my “lake phone” repaired if I went with my carrier. Three weeks without a cell phone? Impossible!
Despite all efforts, it could not be revived and so I was forced into buying a new phone. Luckily all my data had been on a continuous backup cycle so it was with great relief that I went home feeling totally connected to the world once more.
The lesson I gained from this was that I was operating at risk without any back-up phone handy. So my next action is to ensure I will get a second phone as backup AND ensure I have a continuous to the cloud backup procedure in place to keep all the data safe. That way I never have to go through this roller-coaster of emotions again.
Do you have a backup phone in case your phone decides to take a swim without you? Are you backing up your data regularly or – even better – continuously?