The experiment (part one)

The E61’s calendar has caused me to go back to paper for a while and I wrote the following for PDA247. Putting this on the blog because I can’t find any new E61 software…

Last Friday I posted an article called The pen is mightier than the stylus which was followed by a slew of emails asking if PDA247 was going away (use the comments links if you can:)) and it’s definately not. I am not about to set up pdas-are-evil-247.com but wanted to experiment with not using a PDA for a week or so to see if I can cope after more than a decade of mobile organisation reliance.

Over the weekend I did not touch my Nokia or Treo at all except to receive phone calls- no alarms, no games, no eBook reading, just some healthy time with my family.

All bills continue to be paid on time, all tasks completed as needed and strangely no stresses with regard to remembering things. What has really surprised me is how much more time I have without using a PDA. It has become apparent that I spend ages tweaking it and checking records when I don’t need to, I play games on it if I am sat at home rather than just relaxing in front of the TV to watch a good film and I keep referring to it for no real reason.

The amount of time I have spent in the past freeing up memory and recovering from resets is just silly and took away any efficiencies the PDA gives. For a man who lives and dies by his PDA this is a truly strange experience but a good one. I even bought a real paper book (shock horror) and enjoy reading it- I had forgotten just how much I miss a real book.

I’m sure that had I jumped from a Treo to no PDA for an experiement I would be having heroin like cold turkey but jumping from a Nokia E61 is easier because it is a terrible PDA (but a wonderful phone) and has primed me for a time with just paper.

So far reading, my calendar and notes are actually better on paper but I am still struggling with some aspects that a PDA is superb at- contacts being the main one. We will see how the experiment goes but this is showing me just how obsessed I was with my PDA and if you want to join in the experiment feel free and send in your thoughts, or are you even more obsessed than me and can’t do it?