Last weekend, I finally caved and got a BlackBerry. I had been holding out as long as possible because I didn’t want to turn into one of those people who is ALWAYS on her BlackBerry, 1) because I find it annoying, and 2) because I thought I would feel constantly “on call”. Since I have a tendency to be somewhat of a workaholic, I thought the last thing I needed was another thing that would enable me to spend even more time working.
But after our founders’ trip to NYC, I was convinced it was time I joined the BlackBerry-wielding masses. While in NYC we missed an email from someone trying to reschedule a meeting for later that afternoon, and Windsor and I one time couldn’t remember which street we were supposed to look for the subway on- had we had a BlackBerry, both of these problems could have been avoided.
I have had the same exact cell phone since high school (yup, I have never broken or lost it), so this was a big change for me. But when I came back from NYC, I went and replaced my old Razor cell phone (which was a really cool phone when I got it in high school) with a BlackBerry Tour.
Here is my new BlackBerry Tour, and my old Razor cell phone from high school.
So what’s my verdict? So far, I LOVE my BlackBerry! I’ve surprisingly found that it causes me to be less stressed, because instead of returning to my laptop after being out and being overwhelmed by a flood of emails and trying to immediately determine if any of them are urgent, I’ve been in the loop all day, watching what’s coming in, so that I know what to expect, and anything that was urgent, I was already able to deal with. I also already managed to avert a minor HC crisis thanks to my BlackBerry, when one night after I had turned off my computer and gone upstairs, Annie emailed me that I had forgotten to send her something she needed for the next day’s content, but I was able to see it on my BlackBerry and send it to her so everything was able to go up on time!
Do you have a BlackBerry or iPhone or other smartphone? How do you like it?
Also, check out Elana’s article on this very phenomenon from a few weeks ago!