Looking Back…From a Distance

I’m about a month into my latest career transition. There are a lot of differences between what I am doing now and what I have done for most of my career. I know my perspective will most likely change as time goes on, but I did want to share some thoughts about one of the differences and how I can now look back on previous experience and see that all wasn’t exactly as I thought it would be.

Background

Until these last few weeks, and until I said it outloud to someone, I didn’t realize that for over 20 years I had been at least partially on call almost 24x7. For most of those two decades I was in support and customer service leadership positions. For me that meant that my teams where the frontline for customer service for the business or internal and external technical support. Either way you look at it, they were one of the key pieces that kept the organization moving along.

With that responsibility, I realize now that I had chosen to basically connect myself to those duties at almost anytime no matter where I was or what I was doing. Let me explain that just a bit.

In most of my positions, I felt like I had great work-life balance. I rarely missed any of the important events in my families lives and I made it to most of the minor ones. I had time to serve at church and we had the resources (time and finances) to do the things we love most, like camping. All of that was great and I wouldn’t have traded the ability to do all of that.

What I now realize is that while I physically may have been able to do all of these things, I’m not sure I ever had the kind of balance that allowed me to be completely present mentally, at least not on a consistent basis. I took phone calls and did email while I was on vacation, camping trips with the scouts and almost any other time you can think of. None of it really took too much time because I tried to disconnect as much as possible but it was still there.

A few days into long periods of time off I was already thinking about how I was going to dig out and get back on track with key initiatives. That would pull me away from whatever it was we were doing as a family. It wasn’t that I didn’t have good people working for me. I have had the privilege of working with some of the best, but it was an unconscious choice for me to always want to be in the know and involved.

At the time I didn’t think much of any of this. Like I said, I thought I had good balance and in fact, felt like I was extremely lucky to have the kind of flexibility I did. I would work wherever or whenever which opened up tons of doors. And while I don’t think it had any major negative impacts, I can look back now and wonder if having more down time would have helped me be even more productive. I also wonder how many things I missed, even though I was present, that I will never get back.

Why Am I Thinking About This Now

I think there are two reasons this is coming up for me right now. First, I’m not currently in a position where I need to be on and connected 24x7. Second, as folks have asked me how I’m adjusting to my new career, one of the things that keeps coming to mind is that I’m having to deliberately remind myself that I don’t need to be on and going 24x7. Let me give a quick example.

I love gadgets. In fact, I’m thinking about bring my gadget blog back to life. I always want to have the latest and greatest Apple gadgets. So as you can imagine, I’m rarely without my phone. It has always been second nature to just keep checking email during the evening and deal with anything right as it comes in. I think this started back with one of the very first conferences I attended where all of these folks had blackberry’s and I was jealous that they had this handled device that allowed them to stay connected.

For the last few weeks I have found myself automatically hitting that email icon because there was a message count indicator on it. Now, I’m starting to catch myself and remember that I don’t need to deal with most things right now. It can probably wait until tomorrow. And the few times that I don’t catch myself, I end up realizing that the emails were general company news or something like that.

What’s Different Now

I am way more present in the evenings. When I think about going to a soccer game I don’t think about having someone else drive so I can work for the time it takes to get there and I don’t worry about checking my email at half time. Instead of having one night a week where we set aside time, my wife and I find ourselves watching TV or something at least for a little bit most evenings. All without worrying about what is going on at work.

And there are effects to work as well. I feel like I am way more productive because I don’t feel like I have to rush everything. That means I can stop and think through some of the things I am working on instead of just diving right in and making adjustments along them way. Course corrections are fine, but it is much more effective to think through and have an idea of the right course of action before diving in. This has resulted in me spending more time just brainstorming and thinking about our goals and objectives and the best way to accomplish them.

Don’t get me wrong, I still have quite a ways to go. Even at the soccer game today I found myself waking up my phone and then realizing I didn’t need to be on it. And I still occasionally get thinking that there must be something I need to be doing vs. working on strategy and brainstorming. But I’ll keep working on it.

Lessons for Us All

First, we all need to be able to step away. Being connected 24x7 is not as productive or effective as we think it may be. I know there are some jobs where the job is to be available all the time. It takes the right kind of personality to be able to do that day in and day out. For most of the rest of us, we need down time. A few years ago I started taking my email off my phone when I would go on extended vacations. That helped me hold out a bit longer before I started thinking about work again, but I still ended up back there.

Second, occasionally take a step back and evaluate how things are really going. This may mean you need to ask someone with an outside perspective. Re-evaluate your goals and the things that are most important to you and then take stock of how aligned you are with those things.

Last for today, take a look at the pressure you are putting on yourself. One of the reasons I was always connected was because I was placing unreal expectations on myself. Sure there were some things that I was expected to take care of after hours, but many of the things that I was dealing with were by choice because I didn’t feel like I should wait to take care of them. That wasn’t healthy and it took away from the things that were way more important.

Now as I work on breaking these habits, I wish I had not allowed them to become so embedded in my life. But I’ll adjust and I think my professional and personal lives will both be better for it.