There was a time when the cell phone, the Internet and all those things that pervade our lives nowadays seemed like novelties. As recently as a little over a decade ago, not everyone had them. Now everyone has them—even kids—and everyone who has them are practically doing everything using these tools of the hi-tech era. If you heavily depend on modern technology to keep in touch with friends and family, apply for a job, do your banking, shop for stuff, keep yourself entertained and even pick up gossip about your favourite celebrities, then you are leading an e-ife.
Ups and Downs of an e-Life
On the surface, an e-life that is marked by e-business partners, e-customers, e-businesses, e-friends and an e-family seems incredibly convenient. Everything can be literally done at the touch of a button or two. Leading the e-life, however, has its own set of downsides.
For one, there’s this thing called “phubbing”—a recently coined word that’s short for “phone snubbing”, and it’s taking its toll on relationships in a very ironic way. It’s ironic because modern technology makes it possible for friends and family to stay in touch despite distances, but it’s that same modern technology that prevents these friends and family from interacting like normal human beings when they’re gathered in the same room. More often than not, friends and family who actually gather these days are guilty of “phubbing”, where they choose to pay more attention to their mobile devices than have meaningful conversations with the people they’re with.
Organising your e-life
Leading an e-life also wreaks some sort of havoc on our communications. When doing business in an e-life, there’s a very great chance that your e-life contacts are all over the place. They are likely to be scattered among your email inbox, your cell phone, your tablet and even old-school stuff like printouts and the rolodex. If you plan to make your e-life easier, we recommend that you develop and organise your customer database.
The most obvious way of organising your e-life as far as your business communication is concerned is to store all your contact information on a neat spreadsheet. Contact name, company name, title—any information about that that you deem to be very important should be there. If you can sort them into categories that will them easier to find, the better. A well-developed and organised customer database will always come in handy when you’re leading an e-life.
Real life still better than an e-life
Still, no matter how deeply engrossed we are with our e-lives, it should never supplant our real lives. When we get the chance to communicate with our friends and loved ones in person, let’s drop everything and give them all the attention we can give. If we can go out to an actual store to shop, then let’s leave the comfort of our chairs, go out and get some fresh air. You can sure use the exercise. When it comes to matters of the heart, we should not totally depend on dating sites to help us find our soul mates. Go out and meet people in the real world, and you might just find the person you’ve been looking for.
We may all be leading e-lives today, but an e-life or a virtual life can never hold a candle to real life itself.