Life Without Blackberry

Original image from crackberry.com

It's been 5 days since I turned in my blackberry and I'm uncertain how I feel about life without it.

The fact is I've had that continuously buzzing creature within a 5 ft vicinity of me for about 3 years. The only time in recent memory that I can recall not having it near me is on my trip to Mexico, and perhaps my trip to Hawaii as well. Other than that, it has served as my access to the world without a computer, holder of directions (I email Google Map directions to myself and have my Gmail open to the directions when I'm going somewhere) and as rescue navigator (though only through Google Maps cause the models I had didn't have GPS) when I get lost, which is more times than I would like to admit.

Most of those things can be mitigated with some planning (i.e. print directions before I leave the house). It's not horrible to not have access to my email 24/7. Kind of a nice separation, actually. However the one thing that has proven slightly difficult to manage is when there are back to back meetings. For 3 years I didn't have to worry about it because the blackberry would alert me to the next meeting, and where it will take place. I can also get instant updates to those meetings because Outlook was on the blackberry, and if the meeting got moved, I would know immediately.

I already encountered this on Friday at work, where I was heading out to my welcome lunch, heading directly to a meeting after, and then going to another one after that. I had the foresight to bring all the notebooks with me to lunch, and write down the location of the meetings on my notebook before leaving for lunch. But if I had back to back meetings all day long, this would be much more difficult.

Still, this might be manageable if I truly am going to back to back meetings and had my laptop with me. I would have access to my email wherever I went (assuming the battery lasted all day long). It's not pretty, but it can be done.

To throw a curve ball in the mix, cell reception is bad inside the buildings, such that it drains the power of my phone if I leave it on during the day. So I turn it off by the time I get into my office, which means I don't even have my cell to keep time. Now this is interesting, because I truly have not been without my cell near me in years, except for when I was in Mexico! Now I have to find my wrist watch. I don't even know if I have a working one lying around. I might need to rely on the Windows 7 clock widget or something crazy, assuming again, I have my laptop with me at all times.

This of course, would be mitigated (somewhat) if I have a smart phone device that is hooked up to my work email and calendar. Not sure how that resolves the low signal / battery issue though. So I am going to try to tough it out without a smart phone for awhile.

For a person who works in a high tech industry I'm surprisingly without gadgets. I have a Gen 3 iPod (which I only got used from a friend after my Gen 1 killed itself), I don't have a GPS, and my personal phone is a good old feature flip phone. I only recently bought a netbook (first major gadget since I purchased my digital camera in 2005). So I wonder, now that I've been with a blackberry for 3 years, how long I can go without it. We'll just have to wait and see.