The Right PDA for You!

I am not a gadget person; most of my gadget getting has come from my gadget guru husband. Although I did get him an Amazon Kindle for his birthday. Anyway, when I started back to work full-time, gaining more time in my day became my new challenge. Besides working a full-time job I was an aspiring author, I had a home based business to manage, a family to tend to, and technical skills to maintain. So I knew I needed help in a major way, and a maid or personal assistant was out of the question. So my focus turned to finding the right device to help me better manage all these areas. Here are the steps I took…

Step 1: Clearly Define Your Needs

My first step was to define my needs. I already had a functioning cell phone so my husband, my job, the baby sitter or the school could reach me, if needed. I already had a laptop to develop products and to manage my business from home. What I lacked was portability, flexibility, and scalability. Those were my major needs. My more specific needs were to be able to manage my business, check my email accounts, write, and tend to my duties as homemaker, anytime or anywhere.

For those of you who have read my book Balancing Blessings and Obtaining Oder, let me clarify that the device would not take the place of my spiral assistant; but hopefully it would help me be more productive and enhance the way I operate on a daily basis.

Step 2: Define Your Limitations

My next step was to define my limitations or weaknesses. I had to ask myself: "How much can I afford to invest in a device?" Seventy plus dollars a month on a device is more than $840.00 a year. I also had to ask myself: "How much time do I want to spend learning the ins and outs of a new device?" Patience is not a virtue of mine, and is definitely something God is working with me on. My thoughts on any time saving device has been this: It should not take me that much time to get familiar with a device before I can benefit from it, and it saves me time. A limitation for you may be visual or fat fingers (which is also a limitation of mine). A weakness for you may be fear of technology, or an aversion to change.

Step 3: Start Researching Various Gadgets

After defining my needs and limitations, I “googled” Personal Digital Assistance (PDA) devices. My research revealed that they no longer had the appeal they once had. They were being trumped by smart phones like the iPhone, the Blackberry Curve, the Palm Pre and Android—which offers the user the ability to check email accounts away from home, make and receive personal/business calls, and manage appointments.

That was all fine and good, but I still needed the ability to edit or produce documents. My focus then turned to the mini notebook or Net-book (a small version of the desk top computer). It was perfect, so I thought. It offered scalability—it could handle large files, and accommodate my growing needs (through upgrades) in a cost effective manner. It offered portability—it actually fit in my purse, and as a result of its light weight and size I could take it with me to write and check my email accounts away from home with Wi-Fi service. It offered flexibility—I could be productive during unproductive times when I didn’t have my Net-book.

Step 4: Make Your Decision

After comprehensive research I went with the Net-book, and after having had my Net-book for 60 days, I changed my mind. I decided the smart phone was a better choice. Which smart phone, you ask? I’ll tell you that at the end of this blog.

The Net-book met my major needs, and I highly recommend it if your main purpose is to use it to produce documents. The truth is, software applications like Vista, or Adobe Photoshop that require a large screen resolution will not install on Net-books—it just is not a personal computer. As far as the Net-book meeting my more specific needs, it failed as a PDA to help me manage my business and home life on the go.

So there I was again, looking for the perfect gadget. Again, my attention turned to the smart phone since most smart phones like the BlackBerry Curve and the Palm Pre have miniature keyboards to give me that similar feeling of using a Net-book. Portability, flexibility, and scalability are similar to the Net-book; however, the major benefit of having a smart phone were all the applications (called apps) available to help me manage my business and home life more effectively—at little or no cost to me.

If you have time, please read CNET’s article "Best 5 Cell Phones" and Farhad Manjoo’s article "IPhone Apps to Organize Your Life." Farhad Manjoo's article is geared toward the iPhone, but it also provides a great introduction to apps and the types of apps you should consider acquiring for any smart phone.

So what has changed since purchasing my smart phone? I find it much easier to managing reoccurring tasks or lists. For instance, my grocery list is created once, and I can add or subtract items from it as needed (anywhere or anytime)—no need to boot up my computer and print out my list. In addition, I can have multiple lists—a list of needs for each store I frequent. I can even check items off my list as I shop. I have a coworker than uses Google Map to determine the best route (low traffic areas) to take to and from work. By far, my favorite app to date is the Bill Reminder. It has already paid for itself in preventing a late charge on a bill that is paid less regularly than others.

As far as the smart phone saving me time, initially that did not happen. There was an initial learning curve and time spent trying to incorporate apps into my life. After having used it for over six months, I am definitely seeing and reaping the time saving benefits in my smart phone choice. My smart phone choice was the iPhone; although what I was initially looking for was a platform that was a cross between an iPhone and a Net-book, but since the Apple iPad or the HP Slate did not exist at the time of my search, I’ve become very content with the alternative—my iPhone.

(Blog Post revised 4/19/2010).