From My Perspective, Apr 15

David Counsels Ditching the BlackBerry

I'm a long-term fan of David Allen's approach to 'Getting Things Done' (earlier 'Managing Action and Projects') ... I own the tape seminar, his two books, and read his weblog. I was a bit disconcerted this morning to read about his most recent consulting engagement, however, in which he reports that he encouraged the CEO client to dump the Research In Motion BlackBerry in favor of a Palm and laptop. The reason: "e-mail should be processed most efficiently for most people from at least a laptop, and ... a Palm to distribute ... Outlook lists into for portability". Why was this disconcerting? Two reasons:

• The BlackBerry, in my view, is the most optimized device for on-the-go wireless email. The fact that the CEO had one indicates that he probably travels frequently ... but now by dumping the BlackBerry, he's got to lug a laptop and boot that to do email. From my perspective, the BlackBerry is the ideal complement to David's getting things done approach, enabling an individual to process emails in the "2 minute chunks" (you gotta read David's stuff to get that) that are available during the day, and have all that processing automatically re-synchronized with the office email system.


• The BlackBerry already enables synchronization of "lists" for "portability" ... just like the Palm does. Per RIM, the BlackBerry Organizer includes a "Task List - Add, edit and delete tasks. Also mark tasks as complete while you're away from your desk" that "synchronizes with most popular organizer packages" via the BlackBerry Desktop Software (a licensed and re-branded version of IntelliSync). Outlook and Notes support, among a variety of others, are included out-of-the-box, per System Requirements.
  

Knowing that David is a long term user of the Palm, it sounds to me as though David doesn't recognize the power of the BlackBerry, and I encourage him to get one and try it out.

Comments

[José Caraball]

Hi!
From my point of view, for a small number of mails the Blackberry is good. But, if your work a lot on the computer, it would be a torture to work on that tiny keyboard.
As a list manager, I think Palm does a better work.
And, ultimately, if one tool works best for you, keep it and enjoy.

[Janet Tokerud]

Just wanted to check with you, Michael. Are you a long-time blackberry user? And you find the to do's etc work really well in it? You didn't mention your own personal experience so I was wondering if this was conceptual or real world opinion. I like keyboards myself. I'm currently using the Treo 90. I don't travel much but I like having a keyboard and find it very useful. I could see thumbtyping on a blackberry but I've heard the Palm software for to do's, calendar etc is better than what Blackberry provides. Have you used both Palm and Blackberry? Maybe that's a better question.

[George Babu]

Hi there,

First off, a fair disclosure is in order...I work at RIM, and as a result, I use the blackberry extensively, along with Outlook. I can't imagine living without it.

I'm also a big fan of David Allen's GTD system and find that the blackberry is a perfect tool to implement GTD...especially since you can deal with most emails on the go without having to turn on your laptop, start up Outlook and process stuff. While you're sitting in a terminal, waiting for that plane that's never on time, you can empty your inbox, add action items, projects, calendar items, etc! I can't imagine why you'd want to ditch it for the palm.

On my last trip, I was stuck in Heathrow for 9 hours when returning from vacation, and spent that time clearing out my inbox so that when I got into work the next morning, I didn't have a massive inbox to contend with!

Contrary to the comments below, it isn't torture to do email on the tiny keyboard. Having used it for 6 years now, I find it to be quite a usable keyboard.