Imagine that it’s 9:45 in the morning on a weekday and that you’re eight years old. You’re sitting in class at the elementary school when the fire bell rings.

Ring.Ring.Ring…….Ring.Ring.Ring…….Ring.Ring.Ring…….it repeats over and over.

You stand up, line up, and keep quiet. You follow the teacher in a very straight line. The other classrooms are moving along as well. You’re all gathering out in front of the school, class by class, in perfectly straight lines.

It’s quiet, but there’s a murmur. The drill is going well, and the lack of fire trucks makes it clear that it’s a just a drill. There’s no smoke, and there’s no fire.

Smoke would have dragged this thing out, you think to yourself. Sadly, this drill is going to end soon, and you’re going to have to go back to your classroom. Hopefully, the class snake survived and is still safely in his aquarium.

Fast-forward 30 years. You’re 38, and today’s drill involves your laptop.

Let’s pretend it’s dead. You turn it on and nothing happens.

This time, there is no alarm. There is just dead awful silence.

You push the button really hard and then you bang on the bottom of the laptop. Then you mutter…fuck…to the empty room. It’s funny how this drill was entertaining when you were eight and now it makes you say obscenities out loud. Seriously, even though this is just a drill, you can still say “fuck.” I give you permission for the purposes of this exercise.

The clock is ticking, and you should be billing at $250…$350…$450 per hour. The deficit is running at $6 per minute while the computer sits there lifeless.

What’s Your Computer Disaster Response Plan?

Listen up: The school STILL hasn’t burned down. Your laptop, on the other hand, is DEFINITELY going to die. It is. I promise. It’s just waiting until the most inopportune moment. It hates you (it e-mailed me and said so).

What will you do when it dies?

1. You can run to the store and get it repaired. That’ll take all day if you’re lucky and a week if you’re not. Multiply that out at $350 per hour.
2. You can run to the store and buy a new machine (if it has one and if it’s open).
3. You can have a backup in your lower left desk drawer. You can buy this one for $275. Or you can buy a good one for less than $900.
4. You can call your computer person so he can slap it on the bottom and say “fuck” out loud and then go get you a new one.

The economics of the situation (not to mention the client reality) dictate that you stay productive. The machine can’t slow you down. You’ve got to keep working.

Yes, get it repaired if it’s newish or under warranty. But it’s critical that you have a backup machine ready to go. The repair needs to happen after you’re already back to work. The machine is cheap. Your time is expensive. Don’t let the broken machine cost you more than it’s worth.

For the backup plan to work, you’ve got to be able to go to work immediately with the new machine. That’s easy for me. My documents are sitting on NetDocuments. My e-mail and calendar are on Google Apps, and my client data is on Salesforce. I grab my passwords from LastPass, and I’m good to go.

Today, this is only a drill. This is not an actual emergency. The actual emergency won’t happen until you’re totally stressed, under a deadline, and in a position where no excuse will do. Your laptop is waiting for that moment. Will you be ready?