A Day A Week

The past few weeks, I felt myself getting close to burnout again, so I instituted a rule for myself. One day a week, work is off limits – answering email, writing a blog post – anything. For one day a week, it’s off limits. I tend to rotate between Saturdays and Sundays, but it’s completely up to your schedule. To ensure that I stick to it, I tend to save errands and personal obligations for the weekend, forcing myself into a schedule without work. - Andrew Dumont, Always On

I’d tell Andrew to take it a step further. I know its impossible for some people but the smartest thing I’ve ever done professionally was separating my work e-mail from personal e-mail, and removing my work e-mail from my personal phone thus when I check my personal e-mail, work is never lingering in the background.

Establishing Boundaries is crucial. Weekends should be away time, as we already have much less vacation time than most other developed nations, and it works against us. Its okay sometimes a project has a deadline that requires extra work. Its not okay if every project requires extra work. That’s bad planning.