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Time Management
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Most people know how these work, but here’s a good
review. Making Good Use of Pagers
In order to page you, the caller keys in a special telephone number
and then either a numeric callback phone number or an alphabetic
message.The message is immediately forwarded to your pager, usually
alerting you to the new message by a vibration or sound.
Many of these devices also access Internet news, e-mail, and stock
quotes.
What’s the point of a pager if you have a cell phone? The most
important reason has to do with battery usage. When a cell phone is
on but not in use, the battery can run down very quickly. A pager’s
battery lasts much longer, so you can let your pager alert you to the
need to call someone and use your cell phone’s battery only when
making the call. Pagers also tend to get better reception in buildings
than cell phones, so you’re much less likely to miss a call when you
rely on your pager.

tiny keyboards. This can be simply a matter of taste:
some people prefer the tiny keyboard to writing. Others
find PDAs difficult to learn to use, unnecessarily complex,
and awkward to work with.

The electronic assistant—in one form or another—is here to
stay. As with most time-management tools, a PDA should fit
snuggly into your personal organizing style. If you’ve tried PDAs
and, after enough practice, still feel more comfortable with a
paper-based system, then go for it.
Remember: this information is current as this book goes to
print. Within less than a year, changes may occur that will ren-
der obsolete some of these facts. Before buying any technologi-
cal time management device, it’s always best to research thor-
oughly, weigh advantages and disadvantages, and assess how
user-friendly it’s likely to be.

Soft Tools

Up to this point, this chapter has largely examined the time
management potential of technological tools. But much of what