.KEYWORD off
.FLYINGHEAD LIFE MANAGEMENT
.TITLE The double-edged sword of mobile technology
.OTHER
.SUMMARY Are you overly tired because you’re overly wired? Gil Gordon, author of TURN IT OFF: How to Unplug from the Anytime-Anywhere Office Without Disconnecting Your Career, believes the wealth of mobile-office technology that lets us work just about anytime and anywhere has resulted in the blurring of the boundaries between work and the rest of our lives. In this article, he’ll show you how to get the most out of your mobile technology by knowing when to pull the plug.
.AUTHOR Gil E. Gordon
We’re living in the ultimate good news/bad news scenario. The good news is that we’re fortunate enough to have a wealth of mobile-office technology (laptops, cell phones, pagers, and PDAs) that let us work just about anytime and anywhere. The bad news is that we have a wealth of mobile-office technology that let us work just about anytime and anywhere. As a result, the boundaries between work and the rest of our lives that used to exist have become blurred or, in some cases, have disappeared entirely.
.CALLOUT This won’t be an anti-technology, neo-Luddite pitch…
I deal with this topic at length in my book, TURN IT OFF: How to Unplug from the Anytime-Anywhere Office Without Disconnecting Your Career, available at http://www.turnitoff.com. In this article, I’d like to explore some of these themes as they relate to Palm devices in particular, but more generally, as they relate to the ways in which we’re working and living today. Rest easy. This won’t be an anti-technology, neo-Luddite pitch, and I’m not even hinting that we should drag all our battery-powered gadgets and gizmos to the cliff and throw them over to crash on the rocks below. If you’re like me, that’s a tempting thought at times. In reality, though, the problem isn’t with the tools themselves, but with the ways in which we’ve let ourselves get accustomed to using them.
.H1 The double-edged sword of mobile technology
Consider the following dilemmas. We’ve become so accustomed to being in touch that it’s now necessary for the obligatory, "turn off your cell phones and pagers, please," speech before movies, concerts, or plays begin. And there are at least two devices due to be marketed that will be designed to block, or at least reduce, the ringer volume of those devices in an enclosed area.
The parts of our days and weeks that used to be reserved–and preserved–for our own are often invaded. Aided by technology, our co-workers, managers, and clients can reach us at night, on the weekend, at the beach, on vacation, at our children’s soccer games, and just about everywhere else, all in the name of results-driven access and availability.
The very same objective that drives this anytime, anywhere access–improved business performance–is jeopardized when people don’t get a chance to recharge their mental batteries at night, over the weekend, or while on vacation. On the surface, it looks like we’re making optimal use of our employees, but in reality, we’re risking running them down and burning them out.
Palm devices, especially as more Web and email enabled models come into use, are undoubtedly some of the tools in that work-anywhere toolkit. But because most Palm devices don’t ring, other than the occasional alarm, they’re "passive" tools that don’t have quite the same opportunity to bring work to us in non-work settings. That all may change very quickly as wireless networks spread and are upgraded, and as your Palm device gains the capability to chirp, ring, or play the William Tell Overture while you’re sitting in a movie theater with your kids on a Saturday afternoon.
.H1 Getting a handle on the problem
There’s a spreading awareness of these problems. A small but growing number of savvy employers are realizing it makes no sense to keep everyone tethered with an electronic leash. At the same time, employees and even the self-employed are getting fed up with the "always-on" lifestyle they’ve slipped into over the last few years. Even if these wired workers don’t always notice the stress and strain, their spouses and family members gently (or otherwise) nudge them to find the "off" switch for at least some of the time.
What can be done to cope with all this? As I’ve described in my book, the first step is to take a "time out" break and ask yourself whether or not this really is a problem for you. One of the points I make is that nobody can tell you how many hours are too many, or how many calls to check voice mail are excessive. The goal is for you to look in the mirror and decide whether the boundaries between your work and your life have become too permeable. There are several quizzes and checklists in the book that help you do so.
This personal assessment is an important point. It can be just as dysfunctional for someone to tell you "Thou shalt not check email after 8 p.m.," as it would be for that person to expect you to keep checking it until 11 p.m. One of the overly-simplistic ways of dealing with these work-life issues is to assume that you need a chronological firewall that pops up to create bulletproof separation of work from the rest of your life. In truth, many people today prefer something more akin to work-life balance or work-life integration. No matter what you call it, it’s up to you to determine whether you want to make some changes.
.H1 Developing an action plan and selling it
If you do come to the conclusion that you want to regain control of some of those extended work hours, the next step is to develop a plan for making the best use of the 168 hours we all have each week. I’ve developed a "100/60/0" three-zone model that lets you divide those 168 hours into periods when you’re fully on-duty, when you’re completely off-duty, and when you’re working in what I call a "mid-duty" zone in which you’re somewhat less available and accessible but not completely out of contact.
I’m not suggesting that you walk around with a clipboard and stopwatch and turn off your cell phone at exactly 6:34 p.m. on Tuesday night. Instead, I want you to at least become more conscious of your time use and of the need to make some deliberate decisions about how, when, and where you’ll continue to be a part of the wired (or wireless) workplace.
Finally, you need to find a positive, business-like way to pitch your plan to your manager, co-workers, and clients. This need not be a career-limiting process, and I certainly don’t want you to stomp into your boss’s office, slam the door, and demand that your weekends are uninterrupted by calls about next quarter’s budget revision. Treat this like a business proposal; develop your plan, anticipate and prepare to respond to objections, and work towards a negotiated agreement that meets your needs and those of your employer or clients.
.H1 If you’re the manager
Smart managers realize that keeping everyone always connected and accessible can create the ultimate short-term-gain, long-term-pain situation. Here’s what you do to keep your employees from burning out and becoming resentful.
First, try to set the right example. If you’re sending email at one o’clock in the morning or checking voice mail seven times each weekend, you’re sending a much stronger signal than your words to the contrary will ever convey. Maybe that always-on work style is right for you. That’s fine, but be careful about how you might unknowingly be setting an example to be followed.
Second, watch out for what behavior you’re reinforcing. If, for example, you give high praise to staffers who kept checking their email while on vacation, you’re sending a not-so-subtle message about the desirability of doing just that.
Finally, play business-process detective. If you find your staff is routinely staying at the office till the early evening and then doing work at home till the wee hours, try to figure out what accounts for this workload. Is this an opportunity to streamline outdated work methods? Can you discern ways in which your people are working too hard or not cleverly enough? Are your internal or external clients forcing expectations on you that are no longer reasonable? You won’t always be able to remedy these situations, but if you can understand the underlying causes of those always-on symptoms, you can probably make life better and the work more productive for everyone.
.H1 Back to the "good old days?"
Every time I hear a technophobe complain about how "computers have ruined everything," I have to laugh because that person probably wouldn’t want to live in a world where all the computing and communications technologies we thrive on disappeared. But sentiments like those don’t crop up without good reason, and the reason is usually that the tools that are supposed to make our lives easier sometimes seem to be doing anything but that.
The ultimate irony, of course, is that as devices like Palm handhelds become more powerful and more portable, we find ourselves depending on them in ways never anticipated. It isn’t just the ability to check stock quotes and get instant messages, it’s the ease with which you can look up a key client’s spouse’s name and hobbies in an instant on your Palm unit while waiting in the reception area, for example. These aren’t just glorified address books and calendars. They’re productivity tools that become part of the way we do our work.
But precisely because they’re so versatile and convenient, the handheld computing devices (and the cell phones and laptops) can extend our focus on work in very subtle and unexpected ways. They help create a mindset of "just because I can" as an explanation for why we find ourselves working in odd places at odd times.
Let’s face it, it’s probably unrealistic for us to expect to return to the nine-to-five work week with nothing spilling over into the evening hours or weekends, let alone vacations, as was once the case. The pace of business is too fast, the technology works too well, and the expectations of clients and co-workers are too strong to allow us the luxury of having a thick wall between work and the rest of our lives. But that doesn’t mean we can’t take a more proactive role in deciding just how and when those two worlds meet, instead of becoming overly tired because of being overly wired.
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.H1 Product availability and esources
For Gil E. Gordon’s TURN IT OFF: How to Unplug from the Anytime-Anywhere Office Without Disconnecting Your Career, visit http://www.turnitoff.com.
For more information about Palm computers, visit http://www.palm.com.
.H1 Bulk reprints
Bulk reprints of this article (in quantities of 100 or more) are available for a fee from Reprint Services, a ZATZ business partner. Contact them at reprints@zatz.com or by calling 1-800-217-7874.
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.BIO Gil Gordon heads Gil Gordon Associates at http://www.gilgordon.com in Monmouth Junction, NJ. Since 1982, he has specialized in implementing telecommuting and virtual-office programs for employers and in helping vendors develop products and services for that marketplace. His latest book, TURN IT OFF, at http://www.turnitoff.com, has been receiving rave reviews from the business community.
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