Campus News
With so many of us now working off-campus, the line between work and home may feel a bit blurry. An article on our Employee and Family Assistance Program site says one drawback of working from home is that work doesn’t end. “The lack of physical separation between home and work adds to the temptation to keep on working long after the typical working day is over.”
The flexibility of working from home means it might be convenient to hit send on a work-related email late into the night when an idea strikes, but the recipient might be seeing it at that same time, and may feel obligated to respond, whether the sender intended that reaction or not.
Some tips for balance:
- Set times to be technology free, which means no touching a computer, phone or device.
- Set limits. Don’t check your email or voice mail after a set time when your workday is over. If you do need to check in after hours, set a window of time to do that, not all the time, every day.
- If you are concerned about forgetting that brilliant idea before the next workday, go ahead and draft the email you have in mind. Save it in your drafts to send the next day during regular office hours. Worried you’ll forget about the draft? Try using the Delay Delivery feature in Outlook’s desktop app. You’ll find it under the Options tab. Note, delay delivery is not an option if you’re using the Outlook web app.