Umm Professional blogs

The phone is not the boss of you!  Who ever would have thought that a little bitty piece of plastic could hold so much power? We all have a love- like relationship with our phones.  We want to reach and check with the baby sitter on our children’s status but we don’t want our secretaries to find us to update us with more work.  We adore the fact that we can call grandparents to wish them Eid Mubarak over the miles, but we don’t want the phone ringing and spoiling our intimate dinners.  It’s great that you can read random text messages privately in a conference that your husband sends telling you how much he cherishes you, and no one will know as you blush silently.  Still there are days when the phone can start eating into your time.  Here are some nifty moves to make sure tiny smiles stay put on faces even when the office calls.

1. Make a back up of the numbers you have on your phone or sim card. Should your colleague happen to splash cappuccino over your cell phone while illustrating a point at a meeting, or you drop it in a puddle while getting out of a cab- at least you know your important clientele can still be reached when you need to confirm your next business lunch. There are various ways of doing this; you could download the information directly from your cell phone to the computer (refer to your service/phone providers for specifics), save phone numbers on your sim card (in countries where it applies) or get yourself a blackberry- it allows you to sync your contact list to your email address book.

2. Keeping an extra charger in your car or at the office is a small way to make sure you don’t hit panic mode should your phone run out off juice just before your next presentation.

3. Use the phone to let your child talk to his/her friends and family.  It’s a great way to teach telephone etiquette.  First try doing a trial run by demonstrating how to respond when picking up the call, asking about others, and then being clear as to who you want to speak to.  Ask the child to model your language.  Discuss with them what they want to include in the conversation, and then teach them patiently how to dial.  It may actively stifle moaning if they get involved and don’t feel left out.

4. A good way to maintain peace at home and arrest those rolling eyes is to simply ‘ask’ if you may take the call.  Your husband may not concede every time, but the world will not come to an abrupt stop with one missed phone call.  It may not seem obvious at that time but there may be a lot of stress that could be diffused by simply not answering that call immediately.

5. Leave the phone at home when you’re out with the kids.  I started doing this when my office kept calling me pre and post office hours.  I love my job and I like taking those calls but that means they eat into my child’s ‘Us’ time.  Instead I leave the phone at home while I drop my child to school because I’m not tempted to ‘fix’ things that my office throws at me early in the morning.  Anything important can wait till I drop her.  My 4 year old used this time to memorize mummy’s phone number, tell me about her dreams and learn counting the different colored cars on the way to kindergarten.  On our way back I heard who brought the most interesting lunch, and whose clips were very sparkly. Precious moments like these won’t just happen, you need to allocate time so your child can talk knowing she won’t be interrupted.

6. Use the phone to set an alarm 10 mins before each Salah time, download surahs, and surf the web for Islamic information.  Get technology to help you come closer to your Deen, in your free time.

Tell us of your own techniques to avoid a battle of the babble!