First, the why.
Back when I was getting close to burn out, most nights I would either have trouble falling asleep, or I would wake up at 2:00 a.m. worrying about something at work, or both. It wasn't patient care that was causing me this much stress, but rather the admin part of my job.One night, it struck me that this physician needed to heal herself, and that this needed to start with better sleep. I went back to sleep hygiene 101. I ran through the same questions I ask my patients, and realized that my main problem was that I was getting too much "screen-time" in the hours before bed, and that the content of that (work email) was causing me stress.
I reflected back on a few things I'd learned - or rather, I'd heard but not really learned - about "personal effectiveness" at the Canadian Leadership Institute for Medical Education 2 years before. (More info here - it was life-changing for me.) Now, I was raised by great parents, who were near-hippies, so normally, terms like "personal effectiveness" have me reaching for the airsick bag. However, somewhere in these sessions, a few things resonated, and more things percolated slowly over time. Specifically, I remembered: "Schedule time for email." At the time, I didn't really appreciate this, but somewhere in the blur of 3:00 a.m. wakenings, this bubbled to the top of my brain, and I remembered that they said that there was no law that you had to check your email at all waking hours.
I decided not to check work email in the evenings. I would bring work home if needed, but it was specific tasks (papers to grade, committee reports to read, articles to review, teaching to prep) - things that didn't have cause me that immediate feeling of "I must do something about this right now", or worse "I wish I could do something about this right now but I can't". Because my patient-care communication route is my pager, I didn't need to worry about that part of my job, and, to be perfectly honest, there are very few issues that can't wait 'till the morning in the land of medical education - sorry students, but, unfortunately, your need for an extension on an assignment is not, in fact, a crisis. Nor is there such a thing as a scheduling conflict life and death situation. (I love you all - honest!)
I had a separate personal email account that I used in the evenings to keep in touch with friends and family, or I used this thing called a land-line that some of us still keep up for old time's sake.
My sleep started to improve immediately. I know when I'm drifting back into being too consumed by work when I have my sleep problems, and then I immediately back off on screen time (which is why my blogs won't come out this often usually!) and implement best-practice sleep hygiene practices. Better sleep = better me, so this was good for all.
An important *intended* consequence of this decision to stop checking work email is that I was immediately more engaged with my family. I remember being told by experienced parents that what matters to kids of working parents (or all parents, I would imagine) is that when you are with them, that you are really present. My son has always been happy with caregivers while I'm at work, but he is very much bothered if I'm at home but not able to be with him. Work email was taking my attention away from him and from my husband, and I didn't even realize it. He was 2 at the time, and he couldn't understand why I was at home but not attending to him, in his beautifully developmentally appropriate self-centredness, and he wasn't wrong to be upset.
It may annoy some people that I'm not hooked up 24/7 or something like it, but the literature is starting to back me up:
Stress and smart phones
Efficiency and smart phones (Ignore the "CNN endorsement" please.)
So, I turned that technology off (at specific times). How did I then make this work, well, at work?
And now, the how.
This might seem obvious when you read it, but I'm often asked how I manage this. Here's my how-to guide.1) Start a personal email account
If you don't have one, get a personal email account. Do not auto-forward your work email here, or vice versa. Trust me, the annoyance of adding another email account is worth the separation of work and the rest of your life. Gently and persistently ask friends and family to only email you there. Gently and persistently, if needed, as work colleagues to not use that email account. (You need to decide if/when work friends use the account. Good ones won't bug you with unnecessary stuff.)
2) Get the work email off your phone
Grab your smart phone and turn off the work email. Yes, you can and should do this. I am simply not capable of ignoring unread email if it's being brought to my attention on my phone - something like how my kid can't help picking up rocks and sticks. However, not seeing the email (or the rock or stick) gets me around the problem.
If you don't know how to do this - I'll take you through it on the iPhone.
Go to settings, and choose "Mail, Contacts, Calendars"
Select work email - here, it's my Exchange account.
(Big moment here. You might need to sit down.) TURN OFF mail, by hitting the nice little button.
You will be rewarded by this screen.
Feel lighter. Feel happier. Feel free!
3) Now what?
I've been using this approach for almost 3 years now, and it's been very healthy for me. The main downside is that I arrive to an impressively full inbox most mornings, since everyone else, it seems, writes work email in the evenings. I have time scheduled first thing everyday and at the end of the day to deal with quick or urgent matters, and then I have "email time" in my calendar (a topic for a future post - managing the calendar), several times a week to deal with the rest. I usually check for urgent matters once or twice on weekends for about 20 minutes, but that's it. I will admit to forwarding work stuff to my personal account not infrequently, but because it's the stuff I choose, it's not stressful for me (e.g. readings for committees).
During my scheduled email time, I am (usually) focused, efficient, productive, and I can clear 100+ emails in less than an hour.
Some work days, I do have my work email activated on my phone, but since my reception is crummy, this isn't even every day. I do NOT have my work email activated on my phone on vacation. Rarely, I check my email from a "real" computer while on vacation (easier to reply quickly for me as I touch type), but I only do in very exceptional circumstances. I have been known to forget to send a key email before leaving on vacation (ahem) but I draft it on my home email and send it to my assistant who can forward it along without copying me, thus ensuring I don't get sucked into logging in while on vacation, or getting dragged into a thousand replies.
(My next blog post will deal with how I manage the email organization in general and upon my return from vacation, since I get 100 to 200 emails per day at peak times of year.)
Final words
Guess what? Three years in, and I can guarantee you that life goes on. I get work done, and I am sleeping at night. When I'm home, I'm enjoying myself with my family (well, when there are no 5-year-old meltdowns anyway), and when I'm at work, I'm focused, energized, and productive. This, to me, seems like a win-win situation again- don't you think?
And with that... time to exit screen time again.
Next up? Organizing and managing email. I am SOOOOO cool.
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