How I Use My Palm to Avoid Wasted Time

I made an appointment to play racquetball with a friend the other day. It’s a 15 minute drive, and on the way I started listening to a new book using Audible Player and a book I downloaded through AudibleAir. (I have an adapter which lets me plug my Treo right into the same Cassette Adapter I use for my iPod.)

I arrived and warmed up, but soon realized that he must be running late. I looked up his number in my Treo and called his house. His wife answered that he wasn’t home and had been planning to meet me. So I waited patiently. For about 30 seconds. Then I pulled out my Treo and started playing Tetris. When I finished a few games I fired up MunduIM to see if anyone was around for a chat. I read my personal and work email using Chatter but didn’t find any. So I launched Blazer and headed over to http://m.google.com/ to read my GMail (which I just use for mailing lists and such).

A few minutes later he called and apologized for being late. He got caught up at work and asked if I could wait another 15 minutes for him to arrive. I said sure and went back about my reading and surfing.

So instead of a wasted hour (where I certainly wasn’t going to sit around with my laptop), I was able to feel somewhat productive. Had I thought to bring my wired earpiece I could have listened to more of my book while I was waiting.