Power Down
Giant companies are even getting the benefits of unplugging. I was recently at a women’s expo in Knoxville, Tennessee and some of the women there were discussing how the company they work for started implementing a “no e mail Friday” policy. Brilliant. You mean you have to actually take the 10 step journey across the hall to go and talk to someone, in person no less? Or pick up the phone and do the tedious task of pounding out 7 to 11 digits to get an actual person on the line. This is how it goes “hi, I have a quick question”, and then the person answers, and you can either be satisfied with that or ask any other additional needs, and bingo be done with it. We use technology to make our lives easier, but in fact we are creating circumstances that often takes more time to deal with something, and also keeps us beholden to others virtually 24 hours a day. Time to give it a break already and create healthy boundaries from all of our (supposedly) tools of assistance. Try ball and chain. One woman was explaining that it was even worse if an individual was a type A person who can’t help but deal with an e mail once it popped up. She said even when she really wanted to ignore the work note she was unable to focus on what she was doing until the situation had been “wrapped up”.
One friend suggested e mail hours. People should only be able to e mail work related notes from 8am-9pm EST (keeping the PST folks in mind ).
When are we going to get tired of this? Sitting at meals with a friend or loved one, and instead of going eye to eye both individuals are punching away. My husband looks at me out of the corner of his eye when we drive in our car and I clack away. I actually think he would prefer the days of when I would ramble on about things that he pretended to be interested in.
Get involved and make the shift. Short of your kids and a big deal going through, can’t it wait?
See about implementing some healthy parameters at your work place. Forget casual Fridays, lets really find ways to create some breathing room. Power down.
Best, Gabby