It is a lovely Sunday morning over here in Singapore. Yes, the fact that I am GMT +8 does play a pivotal part in me seeing the new day already when most of you folks in the UK or the US are still sleeping or having a late night. (I suspect it would be the latter)
Anyway, I digress. What I mean to say is that today is the perfect kind of day to catch-up on some of the non bleeding-edge stuffs that might have slipped under the radar in the course of the week.
I have just finished reading an interview by CIO Insight with David Allen, author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. The title of the piece is, yes, you guessed it: Ditch your BlackBerry.
Now, before you dismiss it outright as just another marketing gimmick, I do find myself agreeing with Allen’s thinking.
Being the productivity guru here, Allen maintains that IT tools such as e-mail, instant messaging and such helps speed up the flow of information; they really do nothing to help people manage or utilize them better. To quote from the article:
And while PDAs and digital organizers can be useful for people who start out well organized, they do little for those who don’t.
… both the computer and telephone are two-edged swords. If you are unproductive to being with, technology will add something else you are unproductive about. If you are highly productive, you can certainly use technology to facilitate work
The rest of the article talks more on increasing productivity in a technological-centric environment but with judicious application of IT. And of course:
… We don’t use BlackBeries. I think a lot of BlackBery usage is out there because people don’t process their e-mails. Most of us at my company keep our backlog of unprocessed messages pretty clean. When you do that, you don’t necessarily need to see e-mails but once a day.
So what do you think? Has technology really helped us become more productive? Or is it really just wishful thinking with a liberal sprinkling of techno lust for the latest gadgets. Join the discussion.
