Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Blackberry Cold Turkey -- a response

My Blackberry broke a few weeks ago (or, more likely, suffered from Verizon's planned obsolescence program to force me to upgrade). I wish I could report that I felt liberated and could go cold turkey, as Paul Levy famously did on his December 18 blog entry. Turns out, I'm embarassed to report, that I can't do it -- I need my Blackberry.

I didn't realize it before but the greatest value my Blackberry provides isn't timely response, it's efficiency. Since I don't spend much time at my desk, I found that without my Blackberry I couldn't get through my daily pile of emails without dramatically readjusting my lifestyle. Not that those emails were all urgent and important -- most aren't, but triage itself takes time. And Blackberrys are perfect for triage.

The result was that email triage started to encroach on the things that I normally did during my scarce computer sit-down times -- like actual work, and writing this blog. And the only way to increase computer sit-down time was to crowd out time with my family and friends.

So, I've returned to my Blackberry-enhanced world -- a happy pawn in Verizon's grand plan.....

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice try, Micky!

Written by Micky Tripathi said...

Thanks. I'll try again when Verizon makes my new device obsolete....

Anonymous said...

I love my Blackberry, too. BTW there's nothing better than blogging by Blackberry when you're away from the office.

Written by Micky Tripathi said...

Haven't tried yet. Doing it on a Blackberry would have the benefit of forcing me to be more concise though.......