I have avoided carrying a Blackberry for years, but in the past few weeks, I had the opportunity to test drive a Motorola Q Smartphone (I will use the term "Blackberry" generically here because that is what most people are familiar with) for my company, and, like many, many before me, found myself quickly addicted. The reasons are very different from what I expected.

I had resisted the Blackberry because I saw it as a misguided workaholic's badge of honor--a status symbol of self importance that says, "I'm so important people need to be able to reach me at any time." Or, "I just can't stop working." People call them "Crackberrys" and for many they do evidence the fact that those people are always working and don't have a life. I hope I don't offend those I know and work with who have had Blackberrys for years, but I think, actually carrying the phone has awakened me to the often overlooked truth that life is what you make of it.

While it is true that the phone can be a work tether that allows people to reach you at any time...it also gives you a degree of control and freedom over your work life that you did not have before. It allows you to take advantage of small amounts of free time to do things that would otherwise waste valuable time, or, if not addressed quickly, turn into bigger problems. Examples:

• I used to periodically check my home email from work if I was expecting some information or communication unrelated to work. It was a temptation to go check my email. But with the phone, I know when I have new personal email. I don't waste time reloading my webmail inbox. And if a personal email does come in, it is on the phone, separate from what I am working on, so I can check it out without interrupting what I am working on.
• The nature of text messaging--the difficulty of typing on a micro keyboard--forces concise communication. When I'm riding home on the train or at home on the weekend, I can see my work email and quickly respond to a question or issue. I'm more likely to respond quickly, concisely, and without writing a 500 word essay. That is best for everyone.
• Immediacy is not about being at someone else's beck and call. Just because I see an email on the weekend about something doesn't mean I'm going to leave the family alone and go start working. But I can reply quickly to let someone know that I'm aware of the issue and will address it when I have time. I can head off a fire drill progressive email campaign...or call somebody--basically, I can take quick action to take responsibility for a situation.

Multiple modes of communication help work relationships go more smoothly. Email is too often a long-winded discussion that is almost as wasteful as a big group meeting. But a quick text message...or instant messaging chat session...or realizing a phone call is necessary...gives you options for how to work with people effectively. It is a HUGE waste of time to sit there fuming over a long email you received, composing your carefully-considered response, making sure you cc the appropriate people, then deciding whether or not you should actually send the email or not. When people know they can engage you in a quick conversation, it cuts through a lot of crap.

Another advantage of the immediacy of mobile communication is the opportunity to maintain more connections with people and devote appropriate focus to work. Twitter, the website of people broadcasting their daily activities, helps me learn about interesting things that are going on in the world because of short little messages I can check on the train or walking to lunch, etc. Those little "tweets," from sites like mashable.com or Guy Kawasaki may give me an idea to explore something in more detail later. Those kind of things can be distracting if you let them, but when you pursue them in the spare time when you are not sitting at your desk, it improves your focus at your desk.

Part of my challenge--my life challenge--is that I have at least three areas going on at all times: My job in a startup, my family, including a 3-week old newborn and 2 toddlers, and my blogging, here and at WestwoodBlog, where I am trying to build a local community site. My wife and I are both pretty geeky: I sent her an email the other night from my phone downstairs to her laptop upstairs: "Pizza is served!" We keep in touch during the day via email and now she knows that I will probably see the email. That saves a phone call that always seems to come when I'm in a meeting or something. When people post things to my blog, I get notified and I can take 5 minutes from what I'm doing at work to respond, giving the impression that I'm working the blog more full time than I really am. And finally, the interconnections and the embrace, not just of technology, but of relationships and communications, I believe, will make me more effective at work and in my career.

I'm not talking about multi-tasking...that was the mistake of having my home webmail open in another tab on the web browser while I'm simultaneously writing a database query. Instead, I'm managing time to devote appropriate, unscheduled, small amounts of focused time to different things in my life. I don't schedule "quality time" for the kids and family--I find ways to fit everything else in instead of the other way around. I don't intend to become a work slave to the Blackberry--I intend to use it to liberate myself. I've heard people say things like that for years and just didn't believe it or understand it...and sometimes, it really was workaholic bullshit. But life is what you make of it and I do now believe the Blackberry is a tool I can use to make more of my life, not less.