Do You Let Your Tech Get in the Way?

I recently shared some images taken on the bike, and while I enjoy taking pictures of the stuff I get to see, I'm out there to really experience it too. Even the morning that post went up I was riding and watched the sun rise over the local mountains and I thought about taking a picture to tweet about it, but then I just stopped and enjoyed it.

At a coffee catch-up yesterday, the person I met with was too busy typing meeting minutes in Google Docs to actually have a face-to-face conversation with me. Even after I received his play-by-play account of our meeting via email, I left feeling as if we wasted time and never went deep enough to discuss specific, critical issues.

When I'm out with a client and need to take notes I always use my Moleskine notebook instead of my iPad or MacBook Pro. I do this for the simple fact that the technology gets in the way of building a rapport with the potential client. No my notes don't stay in the book, I transfer them to nvALT for long term storage.

When I'm out having coffee with a friend, and it's not meeting to work in a coffee shop together, I purposely leave my phone alone. The only person I'll answer my phone for is my wife, all other calls go to voicemail. On a number of occasions I've had a friend wonder why I'm letting messages go to voicemail, then I tell them that my time is their's.

I do all of the above in an effort to not let tech get in the way of actually living life. 99% of everything else is more important than what is currently happening on your social network of choice.