About a year ago my life was going through a few big changes. Fortunately they were all work-related instead of family related! At the time it gave me a good opportunity to really think about life things from top to bottom, including money, priorities, future directions etc.
I spent a lot of time thinking about life and priorities especially. I had a pretty successful career up to that point, but a lot of that time was spent making work a priority over everything else. There was a wife and 3 kids that deserved some attention, and some things like songwriting and Gator-Studios.com I really wanted to put more focus on. I went about trying to simplify lots of things both financially and time-wise, hoping to change my course.
One of the things I did was ditch my smartphone. I reckoned I spent an awful lot of time with that thing, and I should just stop being so connected. If I needed access I’d just use a computer instead. Lots of people told me this would simplify my life so I cut the cord. I also went to a cheap pre-paid phone, if I needed a phone I’d use one that plugs into the wall.
The problem is, we’re talking about me. Me, who had one of the original Apple Newton’s back a lot of years ago before they even called them PDA’s. Then the second one. Then a Philips Nino. And a bunch of other PDA’s like the Compaq something or other, a Dell something or other. Then they started combining the phones and the PDA’s. I had the first Blackberry. I had the first Palm phone. A few others in there I can’t even remember what they were called.
Yep, since I was about 25 I figured out that putting all your crap in one place, that you could search on was a good thing. I learned that before with a planner, but planner’s have paper, no search function, and make you copy over the things you didn’t get done every day. The early electronic stuff was not very efficient, but got better as time went on because there was more stuff you knew was in that thingy somewhere. I put songs, beer recipes, work notes, bank stuff, everything. I tracked investments, workouts, everything. It got easier over time to put stuff in, and when they added the phone and internet to these things, much of the stuff I put in actually started coming to me direct from the web. It also opened up things like blogging, forums, chasing things down, finding directions and all that. And of course, it tied me up to stuff like email.
A funny thing though, separating yourself from all that doesn’t make it go away. It just means it’s always piled up waiting for you. So I go in early to try and catch back up before the day starts. Even funnier is how it doesn’t stop near the end of the day. So I stay late and try to catch up before the day ends. I sit places in between work and home wondering what is going to bite me, how much is going to be there. By the time I get home I’m behind on studio email, bills, banking other personal things, forum stuff, etc. I used to do a lot of that stuff while walking or waiting for lunch. Now I don’t have time to walk or have lunch. It seems now I’m chained to a computer and phone on either side of a 13 mile drive instead of freed from it all!
And after a year of “simplifying” that part of my life, I’m going to complicate it again. I’ve held out for a full year, and now it’s time to jump back in and see if my bandwidth problems are really that simple or if something else needs to change. I’ll update my progress in a month to see what effects there are, not in terms of play time but really what impact it has on life and business overall. We’ll find out if this is just an addiction, or really something that helps!
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I'm J.J......and I'm a Gator!
After a week the question I have is did this new iPhone change my life? Or did things slow down a bit because we’re getting to summer? I’m cautiously optimistic. I’m free to move about now, that’s certainly better! It is certainly cool. I feel a certain calmness about me.
We’ll have to find out if it’s a life changer or just a summertime honeymoon.
A little more than 2 weeks into this iPhone, and nearly every day I find more stuff I can do with it. A lot of it is useful stuff (like my bank app, Google app and Fring). A lot that allows me to stay better connected (LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook and Twitter). And some like Shoutcast and Flycast that let me rock out by the pool or play Radio Disney for the kids.
The calendar is sync’d to Google and that’s making it easy to keep myself out of trouble with important things I’m struggling to remember. The note pad is helping me with everything from honey-do’s to Taxi listings…did I mention I’ve found time the last 2 weeks to actually look at them?
I just need to be careful not to become one of those people who gets too wrapped up in it…I feel myself being sucked in lol
I’ve only paid for 1 app so far, that being Sonoma Wire Works “FourTrack” which is, well, a 4 track! I’ll post a review for that soon!
It’s becoming clear I can’t live without this iPhone, but next week should tell me if it’s just another toy or a real productivity enhancer. Most people’s vacation time will be done and it will be full speed ahead!
After a month, the “toy” factor has worn off. Initially it was a lot of fun to do everything with the iPhone. You pretty much can, but in reality sometimes it’s just not worth it and better to wait until you’re in front of a PC. So what I have is a device.
I’d say 70-80% of my online time is on the iPhone though, even after the new factor has worn off. Email works great, as does most things that have an app like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. I’m finding I get a lot of thoughts that I can capture, research, or schedule immediately instead of trying to remember them for later. And it’s a lot more family friendly to keep up on the couch instead of locked up in the studio!
I’ve also been able to keep up better and add more stuff back in to my routine at the same time. I’m starting to make some slow progress on my goals once again. I’d honestly have to say the robust mobility is giving me back a couple hours every day. Sadly I still need a couple more hours…I doubt I’ll ever get to the point of being bored or writing songs all day, but such is the nature of the beast! But being back in smartphone-land has proven it is well worth it’s cost.