My BlackBerry Makes Me Less Productive

I purchased my BlackBerry for two reasons:

1) My Treo kept failing and did a lousy job of making the mobile office work for me.
2) The lovely Shmata Queen raved on and on about her Pearl. (I didn't want the Pearl 'cuz I don't do Pink and my hands are far too big for it.

At the time it seemed like a very smart purchase. A fine tool that would make the mobile office a reality for me as well as help improve my productivity. For a long while I was convinced that it did exactly what I wanted it to do.

But I have since begun to reconsider. I have it set up so that it serves up six different email addresses. Four of those are business related and two are not. Three of the business addresses are very active. Two of the personal addresses are relatively active as well.

As a point of reference the two personal addresses are tied into this joint.

If you are playing the home version of this game you should wind up with five email addresses that are quite active resulting in a consistent series of beeps and whistles. Not to mention the text messages that seem to come through in drips and drabs.

The end result is that I find myself staring at the phone on a regular basis trying to determine if the clarion call of email is something that requires immediate attention. The beeps and whistles have turned into the Siren's song for me and I find it hard not to respond to it.

Net effect: I am questioning how much more effective I am because of this unit not to mention its addictive nature. Affect leads to effect and the hamster keeps spinning that wheel.

I tend to believe that it has made me more productive. A simple analysis shows that I am getting more done. But the real benefit is that it truly makes me mobile and for that I am thankful. I dislike being chained to a desk more than I mind the email chatter.

But I do have to acknowledge that it is an electronic leash and that it does make it harder to distinguish between work and play time and that is an issue worth considering.