Nothing in life is more compelling than the next email, finds John Tate – not even feeding the cat. 

So I have finally succumbed. I have got a Blackberry. For the few readers who do not know what a Blackberry is, here is a brief description.

It is an electronic device, in my case coloured black, a little smaller than a pack of playing cards, which allows you to receive and send emails whenever you are in range of a phone signal. It also stores your contacts and calendar which it will synchronise with your desktop system and can act as a mobile phone in its own right.

It has the capacity to be very useful, particularly when you are on the move, as you can maintain email communication wherever you are. However there is a catch – as it
tempts you to work at all times of day and night.

I am one week into receiving my Blackberry Curve and am appreciating the dangers that lurk within. My pre/post Blackberry daily schedule looks something like the table below.

The new routine is not all good. It has affected me, my colleagues at work, my wife and my cat.

I get over 200 emails a day and if you assume the bulk of them come in over the c. 16 hours I am awake that is on average one email each five minutes. If I check an email as soon as I get it, this pretty well messes up my ability to do one thing alone for any length of time.

So I am doing some learning – here are some observations:

1. Your life will continue if you do not check emails for an hour. I have started to switch my Blackberry off when I am in the office and after I get home at night. (Alright, not 100 per cent but at least for some of the time).
2. People do actually realise that you are checking/replying to emails when you are in a meeting and often do not like this – so unless there is something really urgent going on, do not do this.
3. Accountants need to remind themselves that other human beings quite like to actually meet each other and chat and we need to try hard to remember this is our daily lives. Email does not replace this.
4. I am not good at multi-tasking.
5. Replying to emails as soon as you get them is not always a good idea. Take time to mull over issues and think about them before you press the send button.

Over the next month I am going to try and get the Blackberry/life balance right. Help is at hand – if needed via the web. There are many support forums and, if needed, addiction support groups to help. If I use the technology correctly it will be a good thing I think – and my cat is starting lose weight which is definitely a positive.

Pre Blackberry	Post Blackberry
Wake up, feed our cat and make a coffee	Wake up, check my emails, make a coffee and forget to feed the cat as I discover there is an urgent business issue to deal with
Go down to my home office at the bottom of the garden and check my emails and do a bit of work in peace and quiet	Get on the phone and start to deal with the business issue that came up overnight
Get ready to go to the office – briefly reading the FT and the Guardian along the way	Read/reply to more emails during all parts of the preparation for work process
Speak to my wife	Do more emailing and interrupt our discussions as I am alerted to new emails
Travel to work – reading Metro and maybe doing their Sudoku or having some time to think	Guess what – Blackberry away
Have un-interrupted meetings in my office	Take many ‘sneaky’ looks at my Blackberry during each meeting as it buzzes to announce new emails arriving in my in box. Reply to a few
Go home – reading the evening free newspaper on route and maybe check my laptop for emails	Go home and yet more Blackberrying
Speak to the wife, help cook supper, read more of the FT/Guardian	Guess what – discover I have a few more urgent emails to deal with
Relax – chat/TV/read	Get ‘buzzed every ten minutes by my Blackberry and cannot resist seeing what comes in.

 

John Tate is an IT analyst in the charity sector and founder of Citra