It's not just e-mail

One early realization in this project was that an e-mail program is not just an e-mail program.

I was surprised at how dependent I had become upon the calendar and the address book in my Entourage program. I tried printing out a couple months' worth of calendar pages, but what I really missed was the constant reminders and quick access to my calendar. I think I can just be a bit less anal this week and use a paper calendar -- although I might miss a meeting or two.

The address book is another thing. I realized that since I switched from Outlook to Entourage, the program is my only source of phone numbers and e-mail address. In the old program, I could print out a pocket-sized address book that I always had in my wallet. I still have it, in fact. It is just way out of date.

I think I will have to open Entourage through the week to get addresses. That hidden attribute wasn't really part of the experiment.

I did have my first two student "panics," however. One student emailed over the weekend hyperventilating about how anyone could go without e-mail. Today I found a hand-scrawled not from C.J. Campeau asking me for a last-minute piece of paperwork after noting he tried to e-mail but "you're doing some crazy experiment for a week." He had to leave me a cell phone number to reach me...