Turn It Off: How to Unplug from the Anytime-Anywhere Office Without Disconnecting Your Career [Paperback]

Gil Gordon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 13, 2001

Having Trouble Finding the Off Switch on Your Laptop?

E-mail, cell phones, laptops, personal digital assistants ... they were supposed to liberate us from the workplace, but instead mobile office technology has taken us hostage. For millions of "wired workers," the good news is the bad news: thanks to all this gear, we are now able to conduct business anytime and anywhere, but we can no longer shut the office door. We check e-mail on the weekend or late at night, answer pages at all hours, send faxes from home, work while we're on vacation-all because we can. It's out of control. How can we reclaim the boundaries between work life and personal life and still excel at our jobs and maintain our professional livelihoods?

Packed with practical advice, Turn It Off will show you how to regain control and obtain a sense of balance between the very real demands of today's business world and your personal need to get-and really live-a life. Mobile office technology expert Gil Gordon shares:

* Self-tests for evaluating how much your work and personal time overlap
* Methods for managing e-mail and voice mail so they don't control you
* Advice on getting your clients and your boss to respect your boundaries
* Suggestions for what to do if you're the boss-and why "unplugging" is good for business

At the heart of it all is the "100/60/0" model for balancing time and work-a method to help you figure out when you'll be "on" and available to the office 100 percent of the time, part of the time, or not at all. If you're ready to make a change, if you're ready to turn it off, if you're ready to take back your personal time, here are innumerable solutions for letting go without losing credibility, or your job. Ultimately, setting limits on the virtual office benefits everyone-employees, customers, and colleagues.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

For those growing wary of the snowballing impact that technology now has on our lives--especially the way it leads to more time on the job, even when we're supposedly off the clock--Turn It Off will hit a nerve. "It's great to be able to do increasingly sophisticated, complex office work at home," writes Gil Gordon, a consultant who specializes in telecommuting and the virtual office. "It's not so great when we aren't able to close the door (literally or figuratively) on the home office and wind up working well into time we'd rather reserve for ourselves." His book offers a framework that anyone can use to divide the week's 168 total hours into three "zones" determined by how much we're willing to be "on duty" at any given time. It presents a flexible way to determine this level of availability and the days and times that each zone, which range from 0 percent to 60 percent to 100 percent involved, is then in effect. It also explains how to implement such a customized model, including advice for obtaining support from superiors, coworkers, and clients. Results certainly aren't guaranteed, particularly given the seductive nature of today's hot new gadgetry, but those dedicated to reducing its impacts should see improvement by tenaciously employing Gordon's suggestions. --Howard Rothman

From Publishers Weekly

First people traveled to work, then they created home offices and began telecommuting, and then they got wired with laptops, e-mail and cell phones and work became 24/7. Setting boundaries between work and life when the distinction is virtual is difficult but possible, coaches Gil Gordon, an expert on the topic, in Turn It Off: How to Unplug from the Anytime-Anywhere Office Without Disconnecting Your Career. The "basic premise for change," he believes, is "it's your own responsibility." To that end, Gordon has created a workable system he calls "100/60/0" to enable readers, no matter how plugged in, to be able to declare all systems off at least part of the time. Agent, Liv Blumer, Karpfinger Agency.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press; 1 edition (March 13, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609806971
• ISBN-13: 978-0609806975
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 4.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,322,583 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Turn It Off - Three Little Words That Can Change Your Life!, May 23, 2001

By 

"janicemiholics" (Somerset, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Turn It Off: How to Unplug from the Anytime-Anywhere Office Without Disconnecting Your Career (Paperback)

Regardless of who you are - a casual user of today's technology, old, young, or in between, a corporate citizen or a manager - it is easy to become enthralled by today's "toys", which turn into "tools" and unless handled carefully, change into "weapons" that threaten to control us.

At one point in time or another, we've each fallen victim to the seductiveness of "always on" technology. Believing the myth of "I'll only check e-mail for 5 minutes" or "I'll check my voice mail - it will probably only take a second" has lead many of us to the almost unconscious, unnoticeable state of "always on duty". How did it happen? How can we revert back?

"Turn It Off" helps - a great deal! It is practical, the approach is definitely instructive, and the reader is given much to think about when analyzing their personal and professional circumstances. Approaching our time off with as much care as we devote to our business reminds us to cherish it as the valued and valuable commodity it is.

The author has done an admirable job of positioning the trends that we all must respond to as managers, employees and most importantly, people. We live and work in tumultuous times... "Turn It Off" captures our dilemma - and our opportunity to regain control - most effectively.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Get Your Life Back!, March 16, 2001

By 

Roger E. Herman (Greensboro, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Turn It Off: How to Unplug from the Anytime-Anywhere Office Without Disconnecting Your Career (Paperback)

We used to be able to disconnect from the office. Our home lives and our work lives were separate. We had a life, as today's expression goes. In a world of e-mail, voicemail, pagers, cell phones, and personal digital assistants, it's increasingly hard to have a life. At least a life outside of work.

All these technological marvels are wonderful, except that they keep us so tethered to our work. We can no longer easily separate the workplace from the rest of our lives. With these connections, every place is the workplace. Result: burnout, severely reduced family and personal time, and shallow relationships with friends and family. We've been trapped in a world that expects instant response 24 hours a day, 7 days a week . . . if we allow it. And most of us do. But we don't have to!

Gil Gordon, an expert in telecommuting and virtual offices, shows us how to regain our freedom, privacy, space . . . to get a life. The book is organized into nine chapters, starting with How Did We Become So Attached to Our Offices. Get ready-in chapter 2, you'll learn How to Find Out if You've Gone over the Line. The balance of the book is page after page of techniques, based on Gordon's three zones of life management. Chapter 6 is critical: How to Approach, Inform, and Get Support from Your Boss, Clients, or Co-Workers. I bet you'll take notes on this chapter! Don't think you can do it all? Chapter 9 covers What to Do if You Just Can't "Turn It Off."

An important point: Gordon doesn't tell you exactly what to do. He just shows you the path. It's up to the reader to determine how far to go, when, and why. Turn It Off gives you the blueprint, the skeleton design, the concept. It's up to you to use it in the way that will be best for you and your life. No, you can't borrow my copy-I've marked it up-lots of fill-in worksheets. And I want to keep this book.

Turn It Off came at a perfect time in my life. I had reached that point where I really wanted to break free of the bonds of total connection. While my desire was there, I needed just a little bit of moral support and perhaps something to call my feeling. Turn it off! Yes! I read the book. I paid attention. I followed Gordon's suggestions to re-think my life. I made some major changes that feel wonderful already! Now I have to discipline myself to stick with it. I think I'll put Turn It Off in my tickler file for three months from now as a reminder to check my progress. Thanks, Gil Gordon--I now have a life again!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is "spot on", March 23, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Turn It Off: How to Unplug from the Anytime-Anywhere Office Without Disconnecting Your Career (Paperback)

This is an excellent, thoughtful and well-written book. Even more important, the author is absolutely right about the impact of high technology on our lives. The approach he proposes for simplifying your life is, unlike those proposed by others, reasonable, practical and achievable. I highly recommend the book --- as well as the less practical but far more humorous look at high technology and society as provided in the paperback, GONE AWRY: A virtual tour through high tech hell.