Mobile Time Management - Flake or Slotter?

Today, we have become so accustomed to phones in our lives that we often take little things for granted. Remember when making plans with someone meant ‘catching’ them when they were home and near their phone? Or when a child would be bewildered if the parent couldn’t fetch them from school exactly on time?

Before cell phones, many a night was spent eating toast and avoiding the bathroom because no one could call during your daily errands to remind you that, “We’re out of toilet paper and matches.”

Let’s face it; the cellular phone has changed our lives more than we ever thought they would. Cell phones create a medium for us to communicate in real time, making our activities more efficient. This gives us the flexibility to contact others at our convenience.

But Mobile phones have also changed our collective behavior, in our attitude toward time management.  It would seem we have either become spur-of-the-moment free spirits, i.e., “Phone Flakes”; or we are Micro Managing Time Nazis, i.e., “Cell –Slotters.”

Phone Flakes, are prone to flights of fancy in their free time. Phone Flakes use their cell phones to execute each and every spur of the moment idea. For this group it is fairly standard to give and get invitations out of the blue.

You could be at the supermarket, or on your way to an event and get the following call “Hey where are you? What you up to?” and before you know it a trip to HiLo has become a beach lyme, or a mountainside jaunt. If you have a Phone Flake for a friend, chances are you’ve on more than one occasion ended up in the wilderness at night because it is “The perfect place to see the full moon!”

This spontaneity, however, may also cause a lack of focus. The Phone Flake places little emphasis on planning, doling out rain checks with wild abandon! A good percentage of calls from these types of mobile users start with the phrase “Change of plans.”

On the other side of the cell phone spectrum, the Cell-Slotters have their days planned down to the minute, and if and only if, you are luck they may be able to “slot you in” for fifteen minutes next week. If you are dating a Slotter, prepare to be told they may be able to “Pencil you in” for some “quality time” between their evening run and a business dinner.

These A-types tend to pride themselves on their efficiency, and can often be seen at the gym, or office, or meeting, or, well, everywhere. Like a cross between Gordon Gekko and the Tasmanian Devil, they are high powered, high speed, and followed by a perpetual cloud of dust.

The danger of contacting the Cell- Slotter is that they are often so abrupt. One wonders when they find the time to have a personality, or (in the case of the charismatic type Cell-Slotter), how authentic their personality can be while moving at warp speed.

Clearly, the mobile phone has improved our lives, but it has also forced many of us to amusing extremes.

So are you Phone-Flake or Cell- Slotter?