How NOT To Be Rude With Your Cell Phone

Here are a few points from Tim Steven's blog post, "Wherever You Are...Be Fully There". Thought these were definitely worth repeating.

• When you start a meeting, turn your ringer off and move it away from you. If the screen comes to life when you get a text–then put the phone upside down so you won’t see it. If it is likely to vibrate, then put it somewhere it can’t be felt or heard.
• If your phone does vibrate during the meeting and your guest says, “Go ahead and take that if you need to” — reach down and silence it without even looking. This communicates to your guest that they are very valuable to you.
• Don’t buy into the “what if there is an emergency?” line. Rarely does that happen. It’s not a good excuse for having to look at your phone multiple times through every meeting.
• If you know you will need to be reached during the meeting, let your guest know, “My wife is at the doctors office and may need to reach me, so I apologize in advance that I’ll be taking her call when it comes.” That tells your guest this is an exception–you wouldn’t normally do this.
• If you are in a meeting with multiple people–follow the same rules. Don’t convince yourself that your participation isn’t needed right now so you can disengage and respond to texts or play your next turn in Words With Friends.We fool ourselves into thinking we can multitask, or that our disengagement won’t be noticed for a few minutes. Not true.