Yay! The Easter break. I hope you had a great few weeks off. I think this is the first proper holiday we get in school. I hope you topped on your well-being (and maybe some Easter eggs too!).
Well-being. That word again.
Everyone wants you to look after theirs.
But who looks after yours?
I know you try your best to support your team.
But there’s one way I see that I think would benefit from a little tweak…
Emails.
Yep. They’re everywhere.
They make life easier.
And nosier.
And ‘on’ all the time.
We wouldn’t be without them (I think).
But sometimes we just need them to stop!!!
They are also a major cause of well-being stress.
I know many people try to help with this.
And they will include in their emails that the recipient shouldn’t feel obligated to reply.
But also, as leaders, it can be good for our well-being to write emails at certain times, often not office hours because there just don’t seem to be enough hours in the day (right?!).
Here’s the thing.
As the recipient, I can reply whenever I like.
But you know what emails are like…
They demand attention. And once read, they’re in our head.
Distracting us.
Eroding our downtime.
Eroding our focus.
So what can you do?
You need to look after your well-being (I’m a BIG fan of that).
And you do need to be able to write emails at times that support you.
But they can be scheduled.
I discovered this a few years ago and I love it!
I can write emails any time I like.
But I set them to send at times that my team is working.
So if they are checking their emails (and let’s face it, sometimes it’s a habit to check), mine aren’t there.
Others might be, but not mine. I’m not adding to it.
And if everyone did that…well we’d have quieter inboxes at the times we need it – even if we can’t help click the mail button.
Just a thought.
Oh, and one more, if you can turn the notifications badge off that’s a game changer too!
Let me know if you do this already, or have a tip to share with me 🙂
Spotlight Resource
Not sure how to schedule emails – youtube it and I bet you’ll get a short video. You might even like to share it with your team 🙂
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