Turn It Off | Author Biography

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Who's Gil Gordon - And Why Is He Writing This Book?

For the last twenty-five years I have been immersed in the challenge of making life in organizations more productive and more satisfying. Following almost ten years in Human Resources with Johnson & Johnson, I launched my own one-person management consulting business in 1982 to implement telecommuting and virtual office programs for employers in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Today I'm recognized around the world as a leading telecommuting and virtual office expert and a true pioneer in the field. My blue-chip client list includes companies such as Citicorp, AT&T, Merrill Lynch, Ernst & Young, Schering-Plough, Procter & Gamble and many more, as well as public-sector employers and government agencies in the U.S. and around the world.

I edit the industry newsletter TELECOMMUTING REVIEW (published monthly in print since October 1984, but moved onto my Web site in May 1999), co-authored the book Telecommuting: How To Make It Work For You And Your Company, (Prentice-Hall, 1986) co-edited the book Teleworking Explained (John Wiley, 1993), have been a conference speaker across the U.S. and around the world, and hosted the annual TELECOMMUTE conference for business and government leaders from 1992 through 1998.

My Web site (www.gilgordon.com) has become the predominant Internet resource for telecommuting and related topics, attracting thousands of visitors worldwide each month since May 1995.

Why I'm Writing This Book

In the course of developing my telecommuting consulting practice, I have lived with this issue of work without boundaries for eighteen years. My office is in my house, and my wife, children and I have all dealt with the boundary and separation issues between work and the rest of my life. The lure of office work and the need to check phone messages "just one more time" is strongest for someone running a one-person business; there's no paycheck other than from the work I generate and the clients I serve.

Before I realized that I needed to "get a life," there were many times when the family was ready to leave the vacation motel room in the morning but had to wait for me to make "just one more call." I was never guilty of talking to a client on a cell phone while watching one of our children's soccer games, but I do distinctly remember taking a laptop with me to a Saturday night performance of our daughter's play - and firing it up as soon as the curtain was lowered for intermission. Fortunately, good sense at least kept me from trying to type a report while watching the budding actress.

The more technologically sophisticated my business has become, the greater the temptation to squeeze more work into my life - while my family and I want me to squeeze more life into my work. Thus, my basis for writing this book is not only the experience I've had with corporate clients and hundreds of mobile workers, but also the ups and downs of my own work-life balance over the years.

What I Hope To Accomplish With This Book

This book isn't meant to be an anti-technology rant. I don't want to suggest that everyone cut back their work week to 35 or 40 hours. And most important, I don't want to advocate any particular work style or methods for balancing or integrating work and life.

My goals are simple:

- To help you hold a mirror up to your life and to see the extent to which all the mobile-office technology may have changed your work habits and your life;

- To enable you to then look at that assessment of what is happening, and make some deliberate decisions about how you might want to re-establish some boundaries between work and the rest of life;

- To equip you to develop a specific plan for doing so, and for then taking this plan to your boss and/or co-workers and clients and gain their support - without getting fired or losing business.

If you want to work 70-80 hours a week and answer pages or check e-mail in the wee hours of the evening, that's fine. It's not the way I want to work, but it's not for me to say it's not right for you. However, if you do want to make some changes, I can help you reign in that kind of schedule so you can meet your work objectives and have a better sense of separating that work from the rest of your life.

Let's face it: most of us are never going back to the "good old days" of shorter work weeks, plenty of leisure time, and a stress-free existence. But we can make the best of these harried times by choosing to decide where we draw the line between work and the rest of our lives, and them implementing those decisions wisely.

This book will help you do that. It won't solve all your work - or home - problems, it won't make you love a job you otherwise hate, and it won't forever free you from the electronic tethers of voice mail and e-mail. But if you're interested in creating a more balanced and enjoyable lifestyle, this book is for you.

How I Can Help Your Organization

In addition to the book, my interest and involvement in the "Turn It Off" issue extends into consulting and speaking engagements. Few organizations have already taken deliberate steps to create environments where employees can more easily draw some boundaries between work and the rest of their lives - but many others will be doing so.

If you'd like to discuss how I can work with your organization to achieve this goal while still meeting your business objectives, please let me know. I'm also available for speaking dates in your organization, or to industry groups and associations in the U.S. and elsewhere. Just contact me and I'll be glad to discuss your needs.

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