Concerning emails, getting a life and watching Love Island

This blog post from Mondipa Foudza in the Law Society Gazette has started me thinking about how my own management of emails has changed over the years.

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/commentary-and-opinion/701pm-dont-email-unless-its-urgent/5066512.article

I am old enough to remember the days when you sent a letter and then waited several days for a reply – unless you had an ultra-high tech opponent who owned a fax machine. Then we began to send and receive emails via our PCs in the late 1990s. This made things a bit more immediate, but you still had to go and switch on your computer.

Then the smart-phone changed the world. Suddenly, our emails began to follow us everywhere we went. My wife once caught me sitting up in bed reading them on holiday in Mexico. I blamed jet lag and the time difference. But in truth they were there, I was awake, and the rest just happened! On a more serious note I once received an aggressive email from a complaining client at 1155 on Christmas Eve – why did I read it? Because my phone was telling me it was there, and I couldn’t resist. 

These incidents caused me to introduce some strict rules which I have found very useful over the years –

1.      I initially started to disable my work emails when I went on holiday. Now, I understand why it is useful to reduce the number of emails crying out for attention when I get back to work. But on balance, getting a life won the day. I made sure that someone had my mobile phone number, so I could be contacted if I became as indispensable as I thought I was. This worked up to a point, but I still found myself with my nose in my phone while watching The Bridge on a Saturday night.

2.      In time, the penny dropped – the world did not cease to orbit the sun if I did not check them all the time. So I really did take the plunge. I firstly disabled notifications altogether. Then I regressed a full decade and removed my account from my phone. Guess what? I’m still alive, the sun is shining, and Trump would have been elected whether I had my emails on or not.

3.      I have never gone back. I check my emails once or twice when I am at home and never on holiday. But I am now in control.

4.      Much of that energy now goes into twitter!!

There is a real benefit in cutting yourself free from your emails. It creates time for you to relax, to read a book, watch the World Cup or even Love Island if you really must. It also creates space for a more considered reply. If you receive a scary email while you are eating out or travelling, there is a real temptation to fire back a reply immediately. How often has someone pressed the send button and then regretted it. Recalling an email does not erase it! If you create time to read emails you will also create time to reply. You might even ask yourself whether a reply can wait for a day or so.

This might not work for everyone. But if your time is ruled by your mail box you need to change things. Now.