Technology offers us greater flexibility in communication, making the passing of information quicker, communicating easily with colleagues or clients in different time zones and being available to quickly respond to requests at any time of the day or night. However, a survey into the use of smart phones and emails out of hours seems to be on the decrease. According to HR company Northgate Arinso, checking work emails out of work hours went down 8% to 38% from last year’s survey. Work calls taken out of hours have also decreased to 24%, down 12% from the previous year.
As a psychologist, I have been concerned for some time about the psychological and emotional impact of work intruding into one’s personal life. For many people, checking texts or emails last thing at night or first thing in the morning and feeling anxious if they don’t immediately respond to emails or texts, leads to significant stress. These factors impact negatively on their emotional health, ability to think creatively as well as interfering with the quality of their relationships because they are simply ‘not present’.
One of the hardest things for many people is to being able to SAY NO – say no to other people about their expectations and no to themselves for placing unreasonable self-imposed demands on their worth as individuals. To get the results you want from your life, you need to think carefully about what you want and respond blindly to external demands on your time. This starts with learning to listen to yourself and then acquire the communication skills to:
- Educate others how to treat you
- Set boundaries with others and negotiate what you want
A person who blindly responds automatically to external stimuli like texts and emails (or feels anxious if they don’t) is reacting rather than directing their own life and is setting themselves up for trouble in the future.
