I attended a conference in Phoenix when the presenter asked, “when does one plus one not equal two?” We looked around at one another blankly and finally he answered his own question: “when you don’t have a back-up.” The story was a cautionary tale about making sure we have enough equipment to keep our businesses and work flowing even if one piece of equipment goes down.

The story went like this: he was preparing a presentation when his trusty computer died. Not the ‘plug in and let it charge longer’ die but the ‘oh-no-I’ve-lost-everything-and-can’t-get-my-work-done’ type of die. Like the type of die that is going to cost a chunk of change and days of lost work. Thankfully he had another computer and a recent back-up, so he fired up his other computer, pulled up the back-up, and carried on.

Two weeks ago, I sat down to work when my laptop restarted itself. I logged in then watched in horror as it continually restarted itself. At some point, I caught my breath, grabbed my phone and googled the number for Apple Support. At the end of a very long weekend, I was fairly certain my trusty, year-old laptop needed a new hard drive. I was thankful to have a second laptop I could use while mine was being repaired – it allowed me to continue being productive and get my work done.

So, just a courtesy reminder, stop and back-up your computer. Like, right now.  Then assess your equipment to verify you have what you need in case your primary equipment stops working. If you don’t have something to use as a back-up, what is your plan to continue functioning should your main equipment go down? Because in the instance you are constantly relying on one piece of equipment and that goes down, the math does add up! In this case, one minus one does equal zero – and that number can only hurt your productivity!