Okay first of all, please don’t read anything into the title, ambiguity was intentional. I was just trying to get a few more readers to stop by, as compared to the ones who read (thank you!) my last blog (My daughters approve of my work). The title here should have been “It is okay to get off the grid when you need to”. See, not interesting enough, right? But now that you are here, you might as well just give me 4 minutes of your time (thanks again!).
Today I am Over 4 Months Sober!
Today is my 133rd day of No Slack and No Outlook app on my phone! Yes, I call that sober as I was addicted to it and I have come out of it after a lot of struggle. Come on now, don’t be shy; you know I deserve a huge round of applause, if not standing ovation, for this. So please go ahead with your likes, comments, claps or whatever you want to do on this post. And you Lisa Radley, no one possibly could be more proud of me for doing this based on how much time we have spent these past few years communicating during the weekends; not that I don’t like talking to you over the weekend ;)
Workaholic or passionate?
Some of my colleagues say that I am passionate about my work. But in other words, this may simply mean that I am a workaholic. It took me forever to realize that you can be passionate about what you do without being involved in that 24x7. I mean people who are passionate about running, don’t run every day every hour, right?
You are not the only one
I have done many stupid things in my life in my professional career which I regret. For example coming out of paternity leave early because I thought that my company needed me and I was the only one who could handle the project that time. To tell you the truth, all these years, when I got called off hours to help with something, I felt accomplished because I felt I was valued and I was needed. But being the only one means you are the single point of failure and is not a good thing or something to be proud of. Sure it gives you a job security, but you are ruining your own life by working 24x7, so don’t be that person who your company can’t live without.
Working less hours doesn’t make you less efficient
All these years, I somehow felt that being able to respond to emails promptly, resolve things promptly, keeping clients satisfied quickly is the key to success. I still believe that to be true, but I am now giving less emphasis to the word quickly. Of course when the system is down, the client will be unhappy but you don’t have to be on your emails/Slack 24x7 responding. The first thing I did when I woke up over the past few years, was check my Slack/email and the last thing I did before I went to bed wasn’t any different. In fact every time I woke up in the middle of the night, I did the same EXACT thing. But no one is expecting you to respond during your off hours, it is YOU who thinks you are obliged to respond. As we all work globally and have team members across different time zones, by not responding instantly, you are actually giving them a chance to pitch in, to do what you do and to lead. By not being so responsive, you are actually doing everyone a favor. By no means this has resulted in me working only 9–5, I am still passionate about my work and don’t think 8 hours in a day is good enough, but now I am working on my own time. And that has made a huge difference in my life by simply “working on my own time”.
Work When You Want to
The biggest benefit I got from “no Slack on phone” is that I only work when I am on my laptop, and my laptop is (most of time) in my office. So no matter how tempted I am to see what happened after my last conversation on Slack, I now know that I can only respond when I open up my laptop, so I have stopped thinking and worrying about it. Turning off notifications doesn’t help much (at least it didn’t for me), but not having access to it altogether on phone has turned out to be a blessing and I am getting so used to it, and enjoying it :-) So when I am not on my laptop, I am not working.
A joke with a meaning
Have you watched Deepak Chandran’s video on out of office emails? I think he just used the wrong name ;) Here is a 3 minutes video but if you just watch the first 15 seconds, you will know what I am talking about. Although Ajay wouldn’t have sounded natural anyhow in his joke, I am glad he didn’t use my name.
A confession
And I want to wrap up with a confession. Every single thing I said about Slack is true but I am still cheating on my emails. I do check work email on my phone via a browser (and not the app) which makes it inconvenient for me to read (and specially respond) but I am hoping you will be able to inspire me to be disciplined enough to give up on that as well. I do however take a lot of meetings on my phone while being away from my laptop and I haven’t found a good alternative to having just work calendar on phone. If you don’t have anything work related on your phone and are still successful and respected in your work place, I would love to hear and learn from you.