Remember the days of 9 to 5? My Dad would leave for work at 8:30 a.m. after kissing me good bye. He would come home at 5:30 p.m. and spend time with me and my mother, who also worked full time. We’d rehash the day’s activities, watch the news at 6 and then sit down for dinner.
When did you last experience a 9 to 5 day? Or are you a 24/7 person?
Today, with technology, work days for many have become 24/7. Companies promote their 24/7 accessibility. Employees are expected to respond to emails 24/7. I recently met with a PR agency owner who talked about the importance of being 24/7 with his clients. “The clients can have flex time, but we have to be 24/7 for them.”
I think it is getting out of hand, and many are agreeing. Recently there have been television reports about how companies are backing off their employees and not sending them emails after work, or expecting them to answer any emails sent after work. In Brazil, some employess are getting paid overtime if they have to respond to emails after work.
I think when our lives go from “9-2-5” to “2-4-7 ” it all adds up to a big “0” as in “Overwhelming.”
I found my own relationship with my “fruits”- both a Blackberry and an Apple IPhone- getting out of hand along with my time management. A client would email me at 10 p.m. asking for a detailed document or revisions to materials by noon next day. I would wake up and check my email before going to the gym in the morning and see an email from a client at 1 a.m. asking for a full financial report by EOD. Once, in a fit of insomnia I sent out some emails at 3 a.m. EST to “get things off my desk.” (I have a home office.) Two people responded! And when I was being prepped for my second breast cancer surgery I was answering client emails to remain responsive and act normal. There was no stopping me from disconnecting when I was connected to a IV drip! But am I richer for it? Nope!
First of all, why are any of us working in the same time zones sending work emails after work hours and expecting people who have normal lives where they eat, sleep and spend time with friends and family to respond in real time? Second, why are people responding to those emails off hours? Third, what do you really get out of uploading work on people during their downtime?
Many say being 24/7 is necessary for business. It makes a company more responsive and more productive. I think that’s great for network/tech folks who keep our systems running, for medical and emergency crews and for any profession where real time response helps protect or save lives, conserve energy and helps keep our world from falling apart.
But responding to anyone who emails you at 9:30 p.m. while you are in the middle of intermission at the ballet asking you to send over as soon as possible an outline of ideas on how to convince millennial consumers to drink more wine, decide a catering menu and linens for an event, confirm how many media impressions we generated this past month, or send over a budget report ASAP……has rocks in their head.
Mea Culpa! I have been down that road and in the process have so annoyed my husband that he took away my hand-helds. And I felt the annoyance last week when I attended an opera performance and everyone in my aisle was checking their emails during intermission, giving me the stink eye when I tried to squeeze past them to get up and stretch my legs.
Look, we all have reasons to stay connected at all hours. I have overseas clients and realize responding to them early in the morning or at night makes sense to give them a polite response in time for their work day. We want to stay in touch with friends and family. And for businesses, media and communications professionals we need to make sure there are no serious fires to put out that could become breaking news or a crisis.
It’s the non essential communication stream and unrealistic time demands that I consider the problem. I actually think spending more time connected to our computers and hand-helds working off hours is making our lives less productive.
We need to learn to spend some of our downtime offline in order to get our personal time back on track. So, what do we do about it? Here are my thoughts:
1. Put an out of office on your email message letting people know when you will be responding to emails again.
2. If the above makes you uncomfortable and you simply must look at your emails off hours, just do not respond to them immediately. Or write a response and save it to send during normal work hours.
3. Take one weekend day to disconnect and spend doing something you really enjoy, or a task you have wanted to accomplish and keep putting off.
4. Establish a block of time during the day to send and answer emails rather than continually stopping what you are doing to respond to emails that pop up on your screen.
5. Try to set aside one room in your home where you send an answer emails rather than all over the house. That’s right- no more Blackberries in the bedroom and Iphones in the bathroom!
OK, I confess, I am writing this at 6 a.m. I was inspired. And when my creative muse calls me, I answer quickly and capture the moment to write it all down. That’s time I respect. But, I assure you, this blog post will be sent out during normal hours!
