[Ding Dong]2

Only just a year or two ago almost other people at my age, the ‘ABG’, stands for “Aku Baru Gocap” or in the English language means just turned fifty years old, did not use e-mails for correspondence so often. Many even did not have e-mail addresses at all. Ten or fifteen years ago, most people used smart phone full of advanced features at that time only for making phone calls. We thought, what a waste, right?

Nowadays the prices of the various handset models as well as the charges for using mobile phones services became relatively a lot cheaper so the number of people carrying and using cell phones everywhere they go is increased dramatically. In the crowd we could see people chit-chat and text messaging with their cell phones as they walk. Quite often, you thought a colleague standing or sitting near you in the office talked to you whilst actually that person was talking over the phone using the blue tooth device plugged in the ear. You might also have probably read or heard a joke about a funny conversation in a toilet where the person in the other side always responded to the conversation that was actually not intended to that person. The person in the next toilet block was actually talking to other people over the phone (^ u ^)

Then just a few years ago Blackberry device was introduced. The device makes the push mail and instant interactive messaging, the blackberry messenger available 24 by 7, every where you go. It makes communication really in real time even when you are separated by oceans and in different time zones. Not only e-mail accounts but also Facebook, Twitter, etc. have been made available wherever you go as long as you carry your mobile device with you. Do you realize how much your time spent in a day on reading and responding to inbound messages?  Pinging, being pinged, updating, downloading, uploading pictures, etc. Do you realize the distractions in your life because of the sheer temptation to read and reply all the incoming messages when you heard that [Ding Dong}2 sound? How many incoming and outgoing e-mails and messages do you have in a month? How many in an hour? What happens to your productivity, your other activities, your life?

What will actually happen when you turn it off for a while?

As a lecture and coach, I feel relieve because I can leave those devices in silent mode and forget them between 1 to 3 hours when I was giving lecture, training or coaching sessions. I can focus on what I need to deliver and escape from the temptation to check the e-mail accounts or the instant messages received when that [Ding Dong]2 or other alerting sounds is heard. At the office, when I was having meeting, I normally left my cell phone with the secretary just in case there will be an important calls from the regional, head office or customers. For those gentlemen who want to follow similar practice, please do remember to first let the spouses or girlfriends to know it before hand about this practice (^ u ^), to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings.

We shouldn't text messaging while driving - we [hopefully] all knew that very well. But what do you think about text messaging while working? There's nothing wrong when you moderately doing all that at work, but I think that you should not do it while you're working. The advancement in technology has provided us with better connectivity in our social life. However, the habit of responding immediately to the never ending non-stop ‘pleasant’ distractions will prevent us from being productive because we will only give continuous partial attention to all what we do. This habit would cause disturbances and conflicts in the other areas of life.

What do you think?