Coming Into The 21st Century

I fought the necessity of having a smart phone for a very long time. It wasn’t worth the expense in my opinion and it irritated me that people have cell phones attached to their head.

It’s rude when people find it more important to respond to a text when they’re in the middle of a conversation with you. Do they really think they can multitask? You can’t. Not effectively. Your attention is divided and it’s takes time to change focus from one thing to another.

But there’s also something to be said about having everything located in one place.

My business phone was the land line, but if I wasn’t home, I missed calls. I didn’t give my cell number out to anyone unless I was expecting a call. It made it confusing for my clients, everyone really.

So I took advantage of Black Friday (early Black Friday actually, so I didn’t have to fight the crowds) and bought a Samsung Galaxy S3. It has a larger screen than a typical cell phone, which I like in case I get on the internet.

Unlimited texting, unlimited data…not that I’d ever use up a smaller plan.

The first comment I get is, “Oh, you’re saving money by not having both a land line and a cell phone. Wrong. I had a prepaid phone which cost me $25 every three months and a bundled home phone that was $20-$30 per month. And now I’m paying $70-80 per month.

The things I love about it are:

1. Address book – no more packing a hard copy when I go on a trip
2. Internet access – when I lug my laptop around and can’t get online, it’s great to be able to check email whenever I want
3. Texting – didn’t think I’d like it, but there are certainly times when it comes in handy
4. Weather is readily accessible
5. Calendar – I use Google so it’s always updated
6. GPS – oh my gosh! I love having GPS! It has saved me so much time already not having to drive around, thinking I know where I’m going, but not really.
7. Dropbox – if I’d had this phone when I was out of town a few months ago I wouldn’t have had to call my husband to check my computer to see if some files had come in yet.
8. Camera – it’s so much quicker to pull out my phone rather than look for my camera, get it set up and turned on when I just want to catch my cat or dogs in cute poses.

I’m sure there are features I’m not using that would help me in my business, but if not, I am pleased with what I’m using at this point.