Let Me Tell You About My Many Hats

I’m a man of many hats. Typically, when we think of wearing hats, it’s for either for functionality or in support of something. You have your sun hat to keep the sun out of your face, and then you have your baseball hat showing which team you support/root for. As a die-hard Philadelphia sports fan and an avid outdoor athlete, I need many hats for the many activities I participate in (triathlon/paddle board/ rock climbing…).

These are not the hats I’m going to talk about though. Today I want to talk about the metaphorical hats we wear representing the different roles we have every day.

Being an athlete, employee, and a dad

Let’s take today for example. I woke up at 4:30AM and drove to the gym to put on my “athlete hat”, worked out until 6:30, then went home in order to put on my “family man” hat and make breakfast for my wife and 2 children. At 7:30, I drove to the train station and started my commute into Boston in order to put on my “Team Votacall” hat, which wear for the majority of my day before putting my “family man” hat back on at 6:30 and leaving it there for the rest of the night.

These are the main hats I wear throughout the week. I’m willing to bet that most people who work in an office wear similar ones. If this is true, then there’s no way that I’m the only person that strives to minimize the transition time between my various hats/roles. It’s important to keep the different aspects of your day separate. I refuse to wear both team Votacall and family man hats at the same time. The reason being? When I’m teaching my son to ride a 2-wheeler this summer, I want to be solely invested in my time with him and no one else. When I’m taking care of work, I want to solely be invested in work. This is offering my best self the entire time. My son doesn’t deserve 60% of my presence when I am with him, nor does my work.

Ditching my “transitioning” hat

It is my goal to maximize my main hats and to eliminate my “transitioning“ hat.

To me, transition time represents an unavoidable period of the day where productivity is dead. Simply put, you can’t to do things you want to do because you are doing something you have to do. This is usually spent either in traffic or on public transportation. Sure, I can re-purpose that time to the best of my ability and use it for personal development by reading a book, or just relaxing. However, I have always thought that if I could choose, I would rather be productive wearing one of my main hats.

How my new company helps

As a salesperson at Votacall, I immediately recognized the value of my company’s cloud communications platform when I first started using it myself. With the availability of WiFi and cell service almost limitless these days, Votacall’s service allows me to stay productive even when I would typically be in transition mode. If I need to talk to a potential customer in California after 5 PM but know that my son has a school function just after 6, I can still take the early train and make the call from my work number using our mobile app Votacall GO! As long as I find a quiet enough spot, the prospect doesn’t know that I’m in transit, and I’m able to switch right to my family hat once I wrap up. No time wasted.

It should be our choice to be present where we are, rather than worrying about where we’re not.