Well, I’ve finally succumbed to the trend and got a PDA. Two months ago, I was an independent, young woman climbing up the corporate ladder, and now I can’t walk three paces without checking my PDA to make sure I’m going in the right direction. The crazy thing, though, is that I seem to forget more appointments now than I did when I was using my “John Schauer, Inc. Life Insurance” planner. (I can’t remember exactly how much life insurance I bought to earn the aforementioned planner, but at least, I have the comfort of knowing that in the event of my untimely death, the cat’s probably set up for life.)

 

But yeah, back to the PDA. I am for all intents and purposes its bitch. Whenever it beeps or flashes, I’m instantly running to check up on it. Now, I don’t have any children, but damn, I can imagine how it would feel. I think part of my problem was that it’s so easy to put recurring appointments in my PDA that in January, when I was still feeling hopeful and ambitious, I put all of my meetings and tasks in it for the rest of the year. Now when I look at my PDA and realize that that I don’t have a Wednesday afternoon free until mid- May, well then I get kind of overwhelmed and kind of depressed. I guess the problem is that I still remember when I was in charge of my life, and well, now the PDA’s wearing the pants in the family.

Furthermore, the PDA does not tolerate any kind of slack behavior. If I fail to recognize an announcement, it flashes “appointment overdue” messages next time I log on. Then, as if I’m not already feeling guilty enough, when I synchronize my PDA with Outlook, my computer’s nice enough to remind me again of all of the appointments I’ve missed and tasks I’ve failed to complete. I really just can’t live up to my PDA’s expectations of excellence. I need the slackers’ PDA, complete with a “Clear the Rest of my Week so I can go Skiing in Vermont” button and a “I Went Out And Drank Too Much Last Night And Won’t Be Able To Attend Any Meetings til Noon” button. No more operating on an hour by hour basis: Dismiss this appointment, Snooze that task. Sometimes, I just need to be able to dismiss entire chunks of time with one fell swoop of the stylus. Now, that’s a special feature I’d like. I’m tired of this focus on increased productivity. I want to ensure my future ability to slack.

At present, my only hope for my PDA is the fact that I might be able to set it up with a wireless connection. I’d definitely feel better about it if I could use it to surf the web or download music. These are features I might actually be able to incorporate into my lifestyle. You know what would be really sweet: if I could set it up, so that when I press the previously mentioned “Clear the Rest of my Week so I can go Skiing in Vermont” button, my PDA would be nice enough to email my coworkers tasteful little notes apologizing for my absence. Then it would truly be worthy of the title of “Personal Digital Assistant”.