Cut Off Your Hand (Or Maybe Just Your Work Email)
Why You Should Take Your Work Email (and Messaging) Off Your Phone
Cal Newport, in his remarkably timely work, A World Without Email, maps out the idea the email in the modern work environment just sort of happened. There was no meeting, no memo (I guess that used to be a thing), no phone call; it just happened. Because of its simplicity and ease of use, email has now become the way work gets done (or at least has the appearance of getting things done). Email, and even more specifically work email, is simply a fact of life now.
Another part of workplace communication that has just sort of happened is the “always on, always available” mentality. In the modern knowledge workplace, the date and time stamp of the email have become markers of success (or at least we think they do). Not only are the odd-hour emails touted as badges of honor, the race to the fastest response time is meritorious as well.
The chase for faster response time and weirder-houred emails was already crowding in, blurring the lines between work and home. With the onset of the pandemic, I fear the always on work messaging is now simply an expected way of life. But by whom?
I haven’t worked in a corporate setting ever, but I imagine most companies don’t have a codified response time for work messaging. Oftentimes it is an unspoken, social pressure; one that we may be holding ourselves to, even if nobody else is.
Cut Off Your Hand
If you’re anything like me, one work email, text, or Slack message can kick that finally unwound brain back into overdrive in an instant. What started as a request to send over that graphic file to your co-worker ended with you sending out completely unrelated invoices to a client.
Jesus once encouraged some listeners, “…If your right hand causes you to sin, cut if off and throw it away.” Much more than a literal recommendation for amputation, Jesus was encouraging his listeners to take drastic steps to solve problems. Jesus was a guy that didn’t deal with symptoms but dealt with root causes.
Or Maybe Just Your Work Email
The other side of the always-on coin is the never-off side. If the blurred lines of work and home didn’t teach you that in the pandemic, I’m not quire sure what will. To work better—and frankly to be a better human—you need to shut it down.
If your work email and Slack are constantly buzzing and chirping at you, you can do your best to will yourself not to check it. You might resist. But those pings and buzzes will gnaw away at you. The part of your brain that wants to belong, that wants to be thought well of by the “tribe,” will whisper to you, “What if it’s really important?” Or “What if Suzan responds before me?” Or “What will my boss think of me if I don’t quickly answer his questions?”
The only way to stop the chirps, buzzes, and bings is to take your work email and Slack off your phone.
Notice, I’m not advocating for not checking email outside of work hours (though I would strongly advocate for that practice), but I’m advocating that you take your work email and messaging off your phone. Why?
If you’re like most smart phone users, you simply relate differently to your phone than you do your laptop or iPad. Your laptop doesn’t fit in your pocket. It doesn’t go with you almost everywhere you go. You’ll likely never be tempted to open your laptop while you’re driving. You won’t pop it out at the dentist office. You won’t walk into the work bathroom with your laptop (though you may do that at home…you animal.).
For as long as your phone is always on you and your work email/messaging is on your phone, your work email/messaging will always be on you, and you will always feel like you’re “on.”
Your work shouldn’t demand 24/7 access of you.
Your work does not deserve access to you 24/7.
The counter-intuitive reality to this advice is that by being able to rest, your work actually may get a better you. Maybe they can’t squeeze more widgets out of you, but they’ll get better work out of a better you.
Cut off your work email/messaging, and maybe your work will thank you.
If you’d like to learn more about how to more healthily engage with technology in the modern world, check out the link below. It’s an ongoing compilation of what I’m calling “The Practices of Digital Asceticism.” My hope is that it will inspire you to consider what it means to live an intentional digital life by providing different ideas for habits and practices that can inform how you engage with your technology.
