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First Things First | Dec 05 2001

I was once involved with a woman who insisted on stopping in the middle of sex whenever the phone rang so that she could lean over and check her caller ID. That was weird. I tried to get her to turn off the phone beforehand, without success. She was terrified that someone would call to report an unexpected death and that we would be having sex while this person was leaving a message.

*

This morning I received a call from “Anonymous.” As a rule, I never answer calls from “Anonymous” and only rarely answer calls while I’m eating, which is what I was doing at the time, I was having breakfast with Rachel. However, Rachel, doubtless to demonstrate that we are not coextensive, decided to pick it up.

Rachel (softly): Pardon? … He’s not here. … He died. … Yes, please do that. … You’re very kind. Thank you.

Rachel (to me; triumphant): It was Chase Manhattan. They said they’d take you off their list.

Me: Excellent, thanks. Chase Manhattan is my bank. They have all my money. Now I am dead.

*

Hey, look at this chart I just scanned from The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey:

Now you know why Steven Covey makes millions of dollars: he’s screening his calls.

Covey’s makes the claim—and this shook me when I read it, a more or less squandered decade ago—that many of us spend most of our time in Quadrant IV and almost no time in Quadrant II. Granted, the whole corporate-management-caca-as-applied-to-one’s-personal-life thing is terrifying and sick, but the point stands: prioritize.

Which is why I love my caller ID and why if you call me during the day, I will probably ignore you, despite how much I love you, and also why I won’t feel bad that I am ignoring a person I love but will instead feel good that I have avoided the morass of Quadrant IV and have remained in Quadrant II, or at worse Quadrant I, doing the things that need to be done. Said another way, my caller abbr>ID, which cost less than twenty dollars at Radio Shack and stores up to seventy-nine phone numbers, helps prevent me from expending my personal management resources (PMR) on total fucking bullshit (TFB).

Not that your calls are ever TFB, but you see what I’m saying: I’ll get back to you.