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How
connected are we to our inboxes, voicemail, offices, email
pals, wired friends, and other electronic specters? Answer
this question: After someone asks how your vacation was,
what's the next question out of their mouths?
For me, it's always this: "How many emails were waiting
for you when you came back?"
Not too many, I'm sorry to say; I was checking email the
entire trip.
Taking It With Us When We Leave It All Behind
Despite our protestations to the contrary, all too often
we're taking it with us when we try to leave it all behind.
The average carry-on doesn't contain only a sweater and
a change of clothes suited to the climate at our destination
anymore - it includes a PDA; a laptop with converter/phone
line/extra battery; a cellphone, a pager, phone cards,
email passwords, etc. etc. etc. And even if we have the
courage to step away from that info portal and data stream,
we can feel as much adrift as liberated.
And it's not just because we're afraid to stop working.
Staying connected doesn't always mean working - the torrent
of information, gossip, and email idling can sometimes
seem like work and be anything but.
Recently a friend went on vacation during a very busy
period of the year. He had planned the two-week vacation
for months, and was attending a wedding overseas, so they
certainly weren't going to reschedule because he was in
the middle of a negotiation.
He told colleagues, friends, and family that he wouldn't
be checking email, phone messages, or with assistants.
He did make one concession: he gave out phone and fax
numbers of his hotels in Europe.
The result: he received not one phone call, came home
to an almost empty email box, and was caught up in a day.
I'm not advocating ditching your responsibilities and
work to disappear from the data trail entirely. I couldn't
give that advice, because I don't take it myself. I'm
simply saying that life will go on if, just for a few
days, you cease perpetually clicking the Check Mail icons;
you turn off your cellphone; you stop dialing into your
voicemail at every unoccupied payphone.
Choose Your Weapon and Stick With It
The torrent of new gadgets once seemed full of promise
for me; from the lowly pager to your own hard-drive on
the Net. But as these gadgets came and went, showed up
in all the tech, biz, and lifestyle departments in an
endless parade.
Even the novelty of my cellphone has waned; when once
I reached and surpassed my monthly time allowances regularly,
now I'm literally hours short.
Phones. PDAs. Pagers and portable computers. Push-button
technology to the end of our days.
My advice: Pick One.
For me, the laptop does it. The killer travel app of the
laptop, email, is versatile (I can send and receive faxes,
check any number of email addresses, even receive voicemail)
and asynchronous (I can read and answer on my time). If
I've prepared correctly, anything I need to respond is
right on my laptop.
If you're not tethered to your computer, a PDA or simply
a cellphone with a load of numbers stored in memory might
do the trick just fine.
Only Dis-Connect
Most of us are looking for some middle road between accessibility
and privacy. There are ways to stay connected without
disappearing entirely.
Some essential tactics:
1) Set up a vacation/out-of-office email auto-reply. Most
folks, once they see one of these, will leave you alone
for a few days.
2) Change your voicemail messages. Let folks know that
you're not available, and the day of your return. (One
exec I know adds a day to his return date - if he's back
on a Monday, he'll say Tuesday to buy some time to catch
up, and will return calls on Tuesday.)
3) Give out only hotel and fax phone numbers. If there
are potential emergencies, and you are absolutely indispensable
at home, give out hotel phone and fax numbers. Colleagues
and friends who wouldn't think twice about sending an
email or leaving a phone message or calling your cell
to chat with you on the beach will never go so far as
to leave a message with a real human being.
I recommend this even if you travel with a cellphone.
4) If you tell people you'll be checking messages, they'll
expect you not only to check messages, but to consider,
return, and act upon all messages. As if you were at work.
5) Pick choice words in all vacation announcements (voicemail
or email). "If your problem is URGENT;" "If
this is an EMERGENCY…"
6) Cellphone voicemail. Use it. Just because the phone
rings doesn't mean you have to pick it up. If you are
in a meeting or already speaking to someone, unless you
are expecting an important call, to answer another phone
is outright rude. If I sound old-fashioned, so be it;
I'm simply not sure at what point a ringing phone became
a reason to stop in your tracks.
7) Unsub from all wire services, professional mailing
lists, new book release notifications, hobby listservs,
anything that dumps messages into your email box
without prejudice. You're likely going to delete it all
without reading it anyway, and it's likely going to crash
your email app, so just get it over with. And if your
service starts bouncing mail back to listservs, you're
going to be extremely unpopular.
8) Don't give out all your numbers. On days when I'm on
the road, I've come home to the following: a message on
my home phone that says "I'll call your office."
A message on the office phone a few minutes later that
says "I'll call your cellphone." A message on
the cellphone that says "Where are you? I left a
message at your home and office." Then they got online,
and left an email.
9) Return calls after office hours (or during business
hours if you're calling a residence). Many problems can
often be solved by simply leaving a message, but if you
call during business hours and actually get someone on
the phone, it can be very difficult not to be dragged
into whatever is happening.
10) Make all your contacts at the same time. If you absolutely
must check in, do it in one fell swoop, and be done with
it. Fire up your computer, check your email and voicemail,
return calls and email, and make notes in a single sitting.
If you spread it out in small episodes throughout the
day, you're never really away from it.
Things to Leave Behind
1) The extra battery. Outlets are everywhere.
2) Redundant technology. Checking email with the cellphone,
phone messages with email, all of them with PDAs, leads
to unparalleled data clutter. My advice, as mentioned
above: pick your app, and stick to it.
3) Email addictions and other habitual behaviors. The
early morning email check, the late evening email roundup
- these tend to cut into the very best times of the day,
the time you should be reclaiming, especially if you are
on vacation.
4) Overactive vocal cords. Please, no reason to shout
into your cellphone so we all know how important you are.
We won't like you any less if we don't know all your business,
and in truth don't care about your business, really. Trust
me.
The Low-Tech Option
On one recent two-day weekend trip, I hauled a full laptop,
complete with a tangle of connectors and cables, a cellphone,
an address book, a tape recorder, and a printed/emailed/memorized
to-do list, all so I could do about 90 minutes work. And
that work wasn't even very efficient. As a matter of fact,
it was a waste of time, energy, and patience, as well
as carryon space.
On my next trip, I'm bringing one essential tool: a notebook. |
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