By Amit Sehmi, Director of Business Transformation, FT Longitude
In 2017, I joined FT Longitude and one of the many perks was a ‘work from home’ day. Back then, that was almost unheard of. The whole company had laptops and the ability to work remotely whenever needed.
So, when Covid hit and the whole world got used to working remotely, WFH was something I and my colleagues were already pretty familiar with.
Looking back at that time, our first son was only 6 months old when the first lockdown hit and, despite the obvious concerns that everyone was having, my wife and I were able to look on the positive side. I would be home all the time and could spend much more time with our son. To think that before Covid I was only really seeing him for a couple of hours a day at best, now seems totally strange.
Having already been set up for remote work and with the type of business we are, we handled things well from a business aspect and carried on delivering to our clients without missing a beat. From my perspective, this meant leaning into technology a lot more so that I could really be as flexible as possible. This allowed me to work around baby classes, walks for nap times and to help with feeds.
I made the most of my ability to work on my phone, which I hadn’t really done before. I installed Gmail, Slack and Salesforce which meant I could respond or approve anything from anywhere. Any bigger piece of work I would always have my laptop and I could pick that up as and when needed. The nature of my job and the culture of my company meant this worked for me.
The ‘always on’ problem
But, as lockdown dragged on and even as we came out of it, this way of working that I often boasted about, began to have a detrimental effect. I was “always on”.
Instead of being present after work or while I was with my wife and son, I’d have my eyes on my phone, answering emails, approving things or just checking in. I told myself that I was just being efficient and that getting through things as quickly as possible would free me up later. It made sense, but only if I put the phone down!
Being a massive sports fan, if I wasn’t looking at work, I was checking scores, watching highlights, reading articles. And being career driven I would be reading relevant professional articles or catching up on LinkedIn.
All this amounted to one clear problem – I never switched off.
My laptop went with me on holiday, in between ceremonies at a friends wedding I ran upstairs to our hotel room to quickly approve our companies payroll, I’d check in on weekends if needed, and worst of all, while on a two week holiday to Thailand with my now wife, I spent a few days picking up the due diligence as my company was being acquired!
Recently I’ve started to advise startups, specifically agencies, on how to scale, something that has been a huge part of my experience to date and that my skill-set suits. This inevitably meant that there has been more to juggle; I stuck to what I know and tried to keep on top of it by constantly checking in on my phone!
Learning to switch off
After a few heart-to-hearts with my wife and some self-reflection (I’ve been a big fan of the Daily Stoic, by Ryan Holiday, for a few years now), I took all the unnecessary work apps off my phone and muted my work email and messaging apps. That was two years ago; a year ago I removed Instagram and just last week I deleted X off my phone too.
Long story short, I can safely say that taking work apps off my phone has had no impact on my ability to stay on top of work or do my job. I’ve found having the ability to totally switch off has helped both in my personal and work life. I think it’s made me more focused at work and more present with my children (now two boys and another on the way!).
I’ve found that really focussing on whatever I have on at the time has made me much more productive as opposed to trying to multi-task and juggle things all the time. And that has been much easier without the distraction of notifications pinging off every two minutes. I think it has made me a better professional, but also a better father and husband. I don’t think it’s as simple as deleting apps from your phone, but I think that’s a start.
