Learning that Smartphones are not always smart.

I'm sure it will come as no surprise to anyone that while in college, I was glued to my iPhone. I would go out to dinner with friends and be texting someone who was not in attendance the entire time. I would go over a friend's house to watch a movie and would have no idea what occurred during the film because I was too busy checking my phone. If my ringtone went off, there was absolutely no way that I could ignore it. I simply HAD to check it right that second.

A young professional stuck to their iPhone?! Shocking, I know.

However, one of the main adjustments to living my young adult, career-woman life was learning that having your eyes glued to your phone 24/7 is just plain rude. What was once my saving grace in three hour lectures is now completely unacceptable in meetings and presentations. I have finally come to realize that I am not fooling anyone by having my phone in my lap...everyone knows it's there (C'mon... Pants are not that interesting).

Let's backtrack to January, when I was still having a really hard time accepting the concept of not texting my friends from Florida during work hours and not skimming Facebook every five minutes to see status updates of what everyone was eating for lunch. When I started my internship at Events North, one of the first things my lovely boss, Allison Beers, told me is that there is minimal texting during work hours. My first reaction was "UGH!" and I still snuck in a few more texts than I should here and there.

...but I quickly realized that in the world of Event Planning, taking time out of what you're doing to answer a text completely throws off your work-groove. One of the key factors to my job is to remain organized and not overlook small details, which is almost impossible to do if you're constantly distracted.

So, fast forward to the current time. I now realize that going out to dinner with someone and leaving your phone on vibrate in your purse so you can spend time with the person you are physically with is the only way to do it. Turning my phone off before meetings is something that I just do automatically now. It's not only embarrassing if I forget to turn it off and my ringtone, Tom Petty's "American Girl," goes off during an important meeting, it's just a courteous thing to do.

Oh, and if you text or call me for personal reasons during the work hour, you shouldn't plan on getting a response. Don't take it personally, but I realized that my productivity skyrockets when I'm not recapping the Bachelorette or making small talk. Plus, I love my job and I plan on sticking around for a while.

...unless you're my Mom. Even as a Young Professional, I will still always take calls from my Mom.