Source: Business 2.0 Magazine
Date: July 2002
By: David Whitford

How the actor who manages presidential affairs onscreen runs his own off-screen.

A few years ago, my wife, Jane, and I got a triple whammy. We had been trying for a long time to have kids, and suddenly they came. Simultaneously, not one but two of us became extraordinarily lucky in show business. And all of this happened in the midst of renovating a house. So it was this great roundhouse from logistical left field that still has us reeling.

Paradise Found: Whitford's Apple PowerBook G4 laptop

Mobile technology keeps me connected... I have a Nextel i90c with a two-way radio. My old phone had the same feature, and it took me one full year to figure it out. But the great thing about cell phones is I don't have to be at the set all the time. Now the producers can tell me, "You can go see your kids if you promise to check in."

... perhaps too much so. I feel both liberated and suffocated by always being connected. My day starts the night before, when I get confirmation on my phone and BlackBerry of my call times and scenes. When I'm at work, I'll walk outside and my hip will start to buzz. You get messages three ways on this: an 800 number, e-mail, and instant messaging. My life is a game of defense against incoming messages. If you fall two days behind, you never come out of it. Every time I check my messages, I'm reminded of my failures as a friend, as a brother, as a son.

My laptop helps me battle the bedlam. There's a level of chaos in my life that I may be subconsciously keeping there. I am trying to get rid of it. The one piece of technology that has made me feel optimistic about that is my Apple PowerBook G4 laptop. I have an AirPort card and base station, so I can check my e-mail wirelessly. I think there's paradise and peace in this machine.

I make time for the things that are important to me. I get requests every day from people who want to visit the set or want me to support a cause. I try not to overcommit, but I really want to do some of these things. So I have a part-time assistant who updates my to-do list, prints it out, and leaves it on my desk. I used to make fun of Rob [Lowe, a fellow cast member] for having a full-time assistant. But now I think that, even with as much help as I have, I need more. We want to protect the time we have with our kids.

I read at night before I go to bed. No matter how tired I am, it feels weird not to. I'm on a wonderful, tremendously partisan political e-mail list with people who worked in the Clinton administration. I buy Harper's on the newsstand. I subscribe to the New Yorker, the L.A. Times, and the New York Times. One thing I don't do, ironically, is watch television. I can't imagine a life where I'd have time to do that. Jane and I tell our kids that television isn't for watching - it's just a place for Mommy and Daddy to make money.

David Whitford is Bradley's brother and a Boston-based writer for FSB