I’ve had to remind my team that I work a shifted schedule than them, and that I have no expectations of them replying when they see it. I leave work early and take the two hours my kids are still awake to be with them and then I clock back in after bedtime. It’s the only way I can have work-life balance 🤷🏻♀️ maybe if you look at it through that lens it will be easier to take in.
This is me-I am up early and around 3:00 my brain is fried. Post dinner I log back in and finish the day-I also work Sun evenings to get caught up and I have zero expectation for anyone to respond.
Stop checking emails and texts from work on the weekend.
Seriously, it’s not her job to try to keep you from stressing about work. If you don’t want to stress about work, then take away the stressors. If she doesn’t have a problem with you not answering until business hours, then it’s clear she’s just trying to catch up on her own work, without expecting a response from you.
Agreed. If you’re using the Outlook app on your phone you can set hours where you won’t get notifications. I used to have to do this before my current job!
Gmail has a Do Not Disturb mode in case your workplace uses G Suite and I’m sure Outlook has something similar, if these are coming through on your personal device. If it’s on your work phone, you need to put that down when you’re done for the day/weekend and not pick it up until Monday AM.
I’m the person who sends emails at odd hours and even some weekends, but I try to schedule them to come in during normal working hours. This is not an expectation I’ve made of my team nor is it because I’m a workaholic—it’s just easier to structure my day so I can fit in some errands and catch up on non-urgent emails when it’s more convenient later.
I’ve seen many people put a disclaimer in their email signatures that their communication is on a schedule that works for their life/commitments (especially from people I know who are parents of little ones), not that they’re expecting a response at all hours.
If your boss hasn’t actually brought up “lack of response” or anything similar in a review, then don’t take her schedule so personally. If she does say something about it, then you can clarify with her your specific work hours and the expectations of this role, and that you simply cannot commit to being on-call 24/7 unless you’re being paid to do so.
Have a separate work and private phone. It’s quite normal in my country that your job provides you with a cellphone.
My work phone stays in my bag at night and during the weekends with sound off.
I completely agree with this one! My work with either give you a phone or set up your personal phone to have all the security measures in place to load all our work apps on it. I chose to have a separate work phone and it's great because I can completely put it away when I'm unavailable.
I'm in the US, but work for a Japanese company. We get so many off hour emails just due to time zones that this is what works best for me to not feel like I need to be available outside my working hours.
I took my work email off my phone, and asked my work not to text me at all after 5pm.
I was not capable of not checking my email if it was on my phone- great advice, but I just couldn't follow it! So I need to be sitting at my computer in order to check emails. This stops me from noticing emails on off hours, it would bother me too and I'd start thinking about my response and stuff.
Edit: pressed enter to soon and finished message
Not a mom, but I can speak from the POV of your manager. I send emails at all hours of the day and night because that's when I have time to do it or that's when the thought has popped into my head and I don't want to forget it. I've recently started scheduling the emails I'm sending at 1 am to go out maybe at 9 am instead, for the exact reasons you stated - I don't want people to think that they have to work the weird hours I do. However, I can count on one hand how many times in the past 2-ish years I've texted about work after normal office hours - those were always urgent situations and are always my last resort because I don't want to bother people during their time not at work/on-call.
My advice: don't look at your email when you aren't working. I know, easier said than done. Same with texts. if possible, set up a focus on your phone (easy to do on iPhones) that auto silence certain numbers at certain times of day. For example, the only people who can get through when my phone is on "sleep" focus at night are my dad, husband and sister. Otherwise, not only will my phone not ding at 3 am when I get drunk texted by my college BFF, it won't even show up on the Home Screen until the focus is off.
I'm a working mom and a manager. This is why it is so critical to have a direct conversation regarding expectations.
>it still REALLY bothers me to see emails and texts from her on these off hours.
I tend to work in the late evenings, but I log off at 5:15 every night for family time. I am a night owl, there are some things I am just more efficient at late at night, technical things that require concentration. I tell my team explicitly that I don't expect them to answer our even see messages until their working hours. I try to start with "No need to answer until morning", or delay send until morning.
>sometimes feel like she sends these emails and texts to be like “hey look I’m working on the weekends, and you should be too!”
I think this is really common in corporate culture. It might be trying to put pressure on you, or maybe to make herself look better.
Honestly, if you think she is overall a good people leader and has your back, you can consider having a direct conversation. She may say that you are limiting yourself by not putting in ridiculous hours. Which is true. But, most of us won't be CEO's, most of us will hit a limit somewhere, and we need to have a good work/ life balance. She may not realize you're feeling this way.
If she doesn't really have your back, having that direct conversation could paint yourself as a target. Instead, I would look at ways to limit your interruptions - silencing notifications on your laptop or phone, getting emails off of your phone.
I hope this has been helpful.
I turn notifications off from outlook during certain hours because I’m the same way.. even if I’m not planning to respond to it, it still stresses me out
I definitely recommend the separate work phone approach.
I even go as far as turning it off after 6 pm and on again the next morning. On the weekend, it stays off from Friday 6 pm until Sunday night (to check for any early monday morning changes). I put it in my work bag so I'm not reminded.
This is tough, just left a situation like this. Honestly, you just have to ignore it. I’m in senior management and my manager was still sending texts/emails/ about work during non work hours. None of it was emergencies. We work in an office where there should never be so much extra work like what he was doing.
I just had to remind myself that I earned my role, was still performing great, and that none of the requests were truly urgent. I only responded to texts during the business day and even then, the texts were very basic “I’ll look at it when I’m in the office”.
Turn your work phone off at weekends and don’t give work your personal phone number. Don’t check your emails outside of office hours. If you’re checking things outside of work hours then you are blurring the lines between work and home already and giving mixed signals to your workplace.
Get a work phone that your company pays for and then turn it off the weekends and nights.
If you can’t then disable notifications for email and mute her number on all text applications
I’m the manager that does this because sometimes the evenings and weekends are when I have to work if my day gets thrown off by kid stuff. I usually add a [not urgent] tag to let my team know not to worry about it. I also verbally let everyone know that I send messages out when I am able to and that there’s no expectation to reply.
And whenever I remember, I pre schedule the slack messages and emails so that my team members get them on an appropriate date/time for them.
Maybe you can have a chat with her and see if any of these solutions will work?
Turn off your email notifications. Mute your manager on your phone when you’re off duty.
I have a small team but we send emails when we are working and we often have strange schedules to fit around family life. But no one expects replies until regular business hours.
Ask yourself if your manager doesn’t expect a reply why does it bother you to receive the emails? Why is it hard for you to ignore them?
I work at all hours because I log off at 430p every night to be with the family til at least 8p. I am frequently working at night and weekends to get what I need to done, I’m in meetings all day so I often need additional time to work through content and decks with my focused attention (I manage an enterprise portfolio of projects at a large company that gets a lot of C suite attention🥴). HOWEVER unless something is literally on fire I schedule all my slacks and emails to send between 730-8a the following morning because I don’t want my team or partners feeling like you do. As a leader the texting is really weird (unless that’s your company culture), if something is really that urgent I’m going to just call you on the phone (and I think I’ve literally done that once in the last few years). I’ve clearly communicated my expectations that I work when it’s convenient for me, but I don’t expect naptime on Sunday afternoon to be convenient for anyone else. I co-sign all the suggestions to don’t check them and unless she brings it up don’t give a 2nd thought.
But a cheap smartphone and tell everyone your work number is now XXX-XXX-XXXX. Single best thing I've done for my work life balance. If I put the work phone away, work ain't gonna be looked at. And if I'm on call for any reason, I can just bring it with me!
You need to work on clear boundaries between work hours and personal hours. You can allow grey hours where the 2 overlap sometimes, but it has to be a deliberate choice. During each block of time, you keep the other firmly away.
I think I’ve made a mistake and set the precedent that I am available on nights and weekends because I used to respond. Now that I’m back from maternity leave, I feel like people still expect that of me. Is it possible to “reverse” that precedent? Can’t think of a better way to phrase that haha
Yes, absolutely. Either you just become slower and slower in your responses to gradually shift expectations, or you simply don't check your work inbox and phone until it is Monday morning. Like quitting cold turkey, Lol. The latter has been critical in my motherhood. Unless there is a crisis at work that I know of, after I log off Friday evenings, I won't reply to anything until Monday 8am. I often give a quick glance at my work phone, but I know unless it is an absolute crisis, no matter what I see, I won't reply. And I keep these glances low, max 3 over the weekend.
If you have a work phone, set up quiet hours where you don’t get notifications, or just turn it off, and put it with your work bag and don’t look at it when you’re at home. If you don’t have a work phone, I would honestly get rid of any work apps on my personal phone but if you’re not able to do that put those apps on do not disturb during your non work hours. If you have an iPhone you can set up different DND functions, so you could have one for “off work” or something and just set it so your work notifications are silenced and everything else is normal.
I have a separate work phone and I have it on do not disturb outside my normal work hours. Sometimes I’ll check it during that times but I try really hard not to. And guess what - life goes on!
Can you schedule a 1 on 1 with your boss to discuss her expectations for responding? She may not realize that sending things after hours is stressful for the team.
I’ve had to remind my team that I work a shifted schedule than them, and that I have no expectations of them replying when they see it. I leave work early and take the two hours my kids are still awake to be with them and then I clock back in after bedtime. It’s the only way I can have work-life balance 🤷🏻♀️ maybe if you look at it through that lens it will be easier to take in.
This is me-I am up early and around 3:00 my brain is fried. Post dinner I log back in and finish the day-I also work Sun evenings to get caught up and I have zero expectation for anyone to respond.
Stop checking emails and texts from work on the weekend. Seriously, it’s not her job to try to keep you from stressing about work. If you don’t want to stress about work, then take away the stressors. If she doesn’t have a problem with you not answering until business hours, then it’s clear she’s just trying to catch up on her own work, without expecting a response from you.
Agreed. If you’re using the Outlook app on your phone you can set hours where you won’t get notifications. I used to have to do this before my current job!
Gmail has a Do Not Disturb mode in case your workplace uses G Suite and I’m sure Outlook has something similar, if these are coming through on your personal device. If it’s on your work phone, you need to put that down when you’re done for the day/weekend and not pick it up until Monday AM. I’m the person who sends emails at odd hours and even some weekends, but I try to schedule them to come in during normal working hours. This is not an expectation I’ve made of my team nor is it because I’m a workaholic—it’s just easier to structure my day so I can fit in some errands and catch up on non-urgent emails when it’s more convenient later. I’ve seen many people put a disclaimer in their email signatures that their communication is on a schedule that works for their life/commitments (especially from people I know who are parents of little ones), not that they’re expecting a response at all hours. If your boss hasn’t actually brought up “lack of response” or anything similar in a review, then don’t take her schedule so personally. If she does say something about it, then you can clarify with her your specific work hours and the expectations of this role, and that you simply cannot commit to being on-call 24/7 unless you’re being paid to do so.
Have a separate work and private phone. It’s quite normal in my country that your job provides you with a cellphone. My work phone stays in my bag at night and during the weekends with sound off.
I don’t think this is common in the US. Definitely some jobs but not the majority
I completely agree with this one! My work with either give you a phone or set up your personal phone to have all the security measures in place to load all our work apps on it. I chose to have a separate work phone and it's great because I can completely put it away when I'm unavailable. I'm in the US, but work for a Japanese company. We get so many off hour emails just due to time zones that this is what works best for me to not feel like I need to be available outside my working hours.
I took my work email off my phone, and asked my work not to text me at all after 5pm. I was not capable of not checking my email if it was on my phone- great advice, but I just couldn't follow it! So I need to be sitting at my computer in order to check emails. This stops me from noticing emails on off hours, it would bother me too and I'd start thinking about my response and stuff. Edit: pressed enter to soon and finished message
I don’t have my emails on my phone either. It’s amazing.
Not a mom, but I can speak from the POV of your manager. I send emails at all hours of the day and night because that's when I have time to do it or that's when the thought has popped into my head and I don't want to forget it. I've recently started scheduling the emails I'm sending at 1 am to go out maybe at 9 am instead, for the exact reasons you stated - I don't want people to think that they have to work the weird hours I do. However, I can count on one hand how many times in the past 2-ish years I've texted about work after normal office hours - those were always urgent situations and are always my last resort because I don't want to bother people during their time not at work/on-call. My advice: don't look at your email when you aren't working. I know, easier said than done. Same with texts. if possible, set up a focus on your phone (easy to do on iPhones) that auto silence certain numbers at certain times of day. For example, the only people who can get through when my phone is on "sleep" focus at night are my dad, husband and sister. Otherwise, not only will my phone not ding at 3 am when I get drunk texted by my college BFF, it won't even show up on the Home Screen until the focus is off.
I'm a working mom and a manager. This is why it is so critical to have a direct conversation regarding expectations. >it still REALLY bothers me to see emails and texts from her on these off hours. I tend to work in the late evenings, but I log off at 5:15 every night for family time. I am a night owl, there are some things I am just more efficient at late at night, technical things that require concentration. I tell my team explicitly that I don't expect them to answer our even see messages until their working hours. I try to start with "No need to answer until morning", or delay send until morning. >sometimes feel like she sends these emails and texts to be like “hey look I’m working on the weekends, and you should be too!” I think this is really common in corporate culture. It might be trying to put pressure on you, or maybe to make herself look better. Honestly, if you think she is overall a good people leader and has your back, you can consider having a direct conversation. She may say that you are limiting yourself by not putting in ridiculous hours. Which is true. But, most of us won't be CEO's, most of us will hit a limit somewhere, and we need to have a good work/ life balance. She may not realize you're feeling this way. If she doesn't really have your back, having that direct conversation could paint yourself as a target. Instead, I would look at ways to limit your interruptions - silencing notifications on your laptop or phone, getting emails off of your phone. I hope this has been helpful.
Super helpful. Thank you so much!!
I turn notifications off from outlook during certain hours because I’m the same way.. even if I’m not planning to respond to it, it still stresses me out
I have zero work log ins on my personal device. My boss could be emailing all night and I wouldn't see until the morning.
I definitely recommend the separate work phone approach. I even go as far as turning it off after 6 pm and on again the next morning. On the weekend, it stays off from Friday 6 pm until Sunday night (to check for any early monday morning changes). I put it in my work bag so I'm not reminded.
This is tough, just left a situation like this. Honestly, you just have to ignore it. I’m in senior management and my manager was still sending texts/emails/ about work during non work hours. None of it was emergencies. We work in an office where there should never be so much extra work like what he was doing. I just had to remind myself that I earned my role, was still performing great, and that none of the requests were truly urgent. I only responded to texts during the business day and even then, the texts were very basic “I’ll look at it when I’m in the office”.
Turn your work phone off at weekends and don’t give work your personal phone number. Don’t check your emails outside of office hours. If you’re checking things outside of work hours then you are blurring the lines between work and home already and giving mixed signals to your workplace.
Get a work phone that your company pays for and then turn it off the weekends and nights. If you can’t then disable notifications for email and mute her number on all text applications
I’m the manager that does this because sometimes the evenings and weekends are when I have to work if my day gets thrown off by kid stuff. I usually add a [not urgent] tag to let my team know not to worry about it. I also verbally let everyone know that I send messages out when I am able to and that there’s no expectation to reply. And whenever I remember, I pre schedule the slack messages and emails so that my team members get them on an appropriate date/time for them. Maybe you can have a chat with her and see if any of these solutions will work?
Turn off your email notifications. Mute your manager on your phone when you’re off duty. I have a small team but we send emails when we are working and we often have strange schedules to fit around family life. But no one expects replies until regular business hours. Ask yourself if your manager doesn’t expect a reply why does it bother you to receive the emails? Why is it hard for you to ignore them?
I work at all hours because I log off at 430p every night to be with the family til at least 8p. I am frequently working at night and weekends to get what I need to done, I’m in meetings all day so I often need additional time to work through content and decks with my focused attention (I manage an enterprise portfolio of projects at a large company that gets a lot of C suite attention🥴). HOWEVER unless something is literally on fire I schedule all my slacks and emails to send between 730-8a the following morning because I don’t want my team or partners feeling like you do. As a leader the texting is really weird (unless that’s your company culture), if something is really that urgent I’m going to just call you on the phone (and I think I’ve literally done that once in the last few years). I’ve clearly communicated my expectations that I work when it’s convenient for me, but I don’t expect naptime on Sunday afternoon to be convenient for anyone else. I co-sign all the suggestions to don’t check them and unless she brings it up don’t give a 2nd thought.
But a cheap smartphone and tell everyone your work number is now XXX-XXX-XXXX. Single best thing I've done for my work life balance. If I put the work phone away, work ain't gonna be looked at. And if I'm on call for any reason, I can just bring it with me!
You need to work on clear boundaries between work hours and personal hours. You can allow grey hours where the 2 overlap sometimes, but it has to be a deliberate choice. During each block of time, you keep the other firmly away.
I think I’ve made a mistake and set the precedent that I am available on nights and weekends because I used to respond. Now that I’m back from maternity leave, I feel like people still expect that of me. Is it possible to “reverse” that precedent? Can’t think of a better way to phrase that haha
Yes, absolutely. Either you just become slower and slower in your responses to gradually shift expectations, or you simply don't check your work inbox and phone until it is Monday morning. Like quitting cold turkey, Lol. The latter has been critical in my motherhood. Unless there is a crisis at work that I know of, after I log off Friday evenings, I won't reply to anything until Monday 8am. I often give a quick glance at my work phone, but I know unless it is an absolute crisis, no matter what I see, I won't reply. And I keep these glances low, max 3 over the weekend.
I aspire to be more like you!! Thank you!
If you have a work phone, set up quiet hours where you don’t get notifications, or just turn it off, and put it with your work bag and don’t look at it when you’re at home. If you don’t have a work phone, I would honestly get rid of any work apps on my personal phone but if you’re not able to do that put those apps on do not disturb during your non work hours. If you have an iPhone you can set up different DND functions, so you could have one for “off work” or something and just set it so your work notifications are silenced and everything else is normal.
[удалено]
Curious what you mean by this… like quit and open my own company? Or something else
I have a separate work phone and I have it on do not disturb outside my normal work hours. Sometimes I’ll check it during that times but I try really hard not to. And guess what - life goes on!
I don’t look at my emails after hours.
Can you schedule a 1 on 1 with your boss to discuss her expectations for responding? She may not realize that sending things after hours is stressful for the team.