Are you too connected?

You are just finishing dinner and your phone buzzes, its a text from one of your clients with a question. Are you annoyed? You shouldn't be, the reality is business owners never stop working so we shouldn't stop being available simply because the traditional work day is over. In fact some of the best interreaction I have with my clients is after hours. After all what could feel better as a customer than freaking out about something and being able to get some reassurance from your banker immediately? Even if we can't fix it that night, they will sleep better knowing its the top of our agenda the next morning.

Let's face it, we don't want to be so plugged in that we're buried in our phones and miss our kid's home run, or are in anyway disconnecting from our families, that would be selfish, and bad parenting. However, taking a few moments in your evening to check your e-mail and text messages to ensure there are no fires isn't as bad as it sounds.

In fact, this translates to vacation time as well. Yes you have your out of office on but you still get e-mails and texts, especially from those clients that have that all exclusive direct access to you. Some of the best advice I received on vacations and work came from a lawyer I use quite a bit. He said his rule was to set aside 20-30 minutes each evening on vacation to go for a walk, pull out his phone and "quarterback" the hot items, respond to the necessary ones, and put off the ones that can live until your vacation is over. Note that he isn't saying to be connected at Magic Kingdom, just to set a few minutes aside each day to make sure the wheels on the bus are still going round and round.

I do this now, it works great. And those that work with me know that if there is something critical they will likely hear from me that evening or the next. There is a very fine line here, I'm not saying sleep with your phone, but I'm also not saying to ignore it. As I said, business owners have issues 24/7, if we want to do the job right we'll recognize that and try our best to be there to ease their concerns if and when they occur after hours.