Widespread Wi-Fi coverage, smart phones, ultra-portable computers, and other technological marvels of the 21st century blur the line between work and play more than ever. Here are a few tricks for reclaiming your time by setting boundaries between work and play. More »
Dave's Take: This is a real serious problem nowadays. I'm glad Naomi isn't TOO bad with her workphone, but it still pisses me off that she's required to answer it for stupid shit on her days off. Really annoying. But one of the suggestions I might try is the separate user accounts for different uses; it sounds like a good idea. There's also a comment here which made me take a step back and re-evaluate my choice of phones when I upgrade. Even though I'm a tech junkie, I can see how even a Droid phone might turn into reverse ownership (possessions owning owner) with all the apps and tweaking I could spend hours on. Naomi's not a victim of reverse ownership with her Droid, but I can get a little compulsive with tech. Here's the comment:
"Here's the big one that's missed: Using one phone for both work and Personal? STOP. The smartphone is the biggest contributor to this problem, IMO at least, and one that's ironically easiest to correct. Unless you are paid to be on call, or need to be on call leave your BlackBerry/smartphone/work phone at work and pick up your home phone. Same thing goes the other way. You home phone, unless you don't have a job that demands a smartphone, should be a dumb phone. No, Seriously. Here's why:
If your work phone is a Blackberry/Smartphone - leave it at work, or at least leave it in the car when you get home. Don't have it in your pocket, don't think about it, set clear guidelines on when you'll check it. Get a DUMBPHONE for a personal phone. Why? First: cost - if work already picks up a smartphone data plan, why spend more? No, seriously. Really.. truly.. why? If you need a smartphone well, bam, you've got one in your car. I bet that 99% of the time you won't need one.
It's also oddly freeing not to have email on your phone. You aren't constantly distracted by the buzzing, or constantly tempted to look. Hell, get the right phone and you won't even be tempted to text. Guess what happens? If someone really needs you - they call. And unless you are some social magnate or decide to give your phone number out to a ton of people (more on that in a second) - you won't get many calls. Instead of the phone, you'll be able to be truly social. You can hike. You can play with the kids. YOU CAN HAVE FUN! with life instead of constantly checking your phone for the newest bit of useless information or work.
This is now all truly possible. Give only your closest people your dumbphone number, everyone else give either your work cell or your Google Voice number. They can text, call, and whatever all that they want - but you can be free. Give several chosen, trusted co-workers your personal number with the explicit instructions that it's only to be used in the case of emergency, letting your boss know of the very same thing. If your job doesn't like that - tough love here - find a new one because your job, frankly, sucks. If they value you they won't bother you on your time away, and they will respect your decision.
I went that route for a year, then I did something stupid: I bought an iPhone for my personal phone. My freedom and sanity slowly disappeared as I began to check tons of useless apps on it. Then texted friends. Then texted work friends. Then I setup my work email account. AND THEN I got rid of it because it was pointless, now back to just using my BlackBerry for everything.
Is this all harried, hard to understand, scattered and off? It's because my stress level is beyond measure, I'm constantly working, and have no real separation between work and home.
This afternoon I'm going to get a Nextel tough-as-a-brick dumbphone activated on my personal account, and then my BlackBerry is getting left in my truck for the weekend. I know work doesn't care - they've outright said it - and I trust 3 people who will call me if it really is an emergency.
Check back with me in a week, and I'm sure I'll be sane again. I won't have a black chain in my pocket or on my belt, and I don't give a damn what people think of my brick of a Nextel phone. Why? It's a freedom brick, that's why."
Now like I said, Naomi's not at risk with her choice of phone (which is admirable), but I'll at least make a concerted effort to turn the damn thing off sometimes.
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