Work Smarter Not Harder?

When I was in elementary and middle school, we heard tales of a paper-free society because of the efficiency of technology and computers. Judging by the MOUNDS of filing I was paid to do in college at the world headquarters of a renowned staffing agency, that prediction wasn't coming to fruition anytime soon.

As more people embraced e-mail, word came down once again. E-mails would eliminate the need for paper letters and memos. That is, of course, unless you wanted to PRINT all those e-mailed jokes, recipes, love letters and very important communications.

More recently, smartphones hinted at a total meshing of all communications media into one neat little package in our hip pockets. How SIMPLE that would make life!!

Looking at my desk right now? I'm not seeing it at all.

For one thing, my life is one big avalanche of paper. At any given time, I have stacks of papers organized by priority of importance.



To the left of my laptop is the HOT pile. Those items needed to be addressed YESTERDAY, and I look at them every time I sit down to check e-mail and get to work. To the right is next in line and/or long-term storage for ongoing issues. I may not have to return to them right away, but they need to stay parked for now. Both pull-out ledges stacked with projects also in progress, but of an ongoing nature. Stuff will get put there every day or so, worked on, removed and ledges returned to their proper and retracted position.

Moreover, all this technology has not made my life simpler at all; it's made it far more complicated. There are e-mails on several different accounts to read daily and 'file,' there are FB accounts and group pages to moderate and keep up with, there are cell phone texts and voice mails, and landline voice mails -- though I have a special tool to help with the landline messages. When the blinking light of waiting messages gets to be overwhelming, I simply cover it up with a little knit thingy my daughter made me.

No see blinky, no worry about blinky.

(Anyone who REALLY needs me calls the cell anyway. And that's on vibrate so often I don't even notice, so it can't bother me too much, either. Heh.)

People like me are definitely working smarter with technology. But it has also made us work harder...to keep up, to keep informed, and to keep in touch all the time.

Except, of course, when your voice mail is being ignored.