{"id":279853,"date":"2020-12-28T03:19:11","date_gmt":"2020-12-28T08:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=279853"},"modified":"2020-12-28T03:19:11","modified_gmt":"2020-12-28T08:19:11","slug":"heres-why-youre-checking-work-emails-on-holidays-and-how-to-stop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/12\/28\/heres-why-youre-checking-work-emails-on-holidays-and-how-to-stop\/","title":{"rendered":"Here’s why you’re checking work emails on holidays (and how to stop)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
But you\u2019re still checking work emails and taking work calls. Even if you are at a remote location that screams holiday, you\u2019re still thinking about work, or even doing work, although you promised yourself this time would be different. (File Photo: Damir Spanic\/Unsplash)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Finally, the holidays are here \u2014 the break you\u2019ve been waiting for. You want to leave work behind, kick back and enjoy time with family and friends.<\/p>\n

But you\u2019re still checking work emails and taking work calls. Even if you are at a remote location that screams holiday, you\u2019re still thinking about work, or even doing work, although you promised yourself this time would be different.<\/p>\n

If this sounds familiar, you\u2019re not the only one struggling to switch off<\/a> on holidays.<\/p>\n

One reason is you, like many others, might derive a strong sense of self from your work.<\/p>\n

Work helps shape your identity<\/h2>\n

Humans crave answers to the question \u201cwho am I?\u201d. One place we find these answers is in the activities we do \u2014 including our work. Whether we work by choice, necessity, or a bit of both, many of us find work inevitably becomes a source of our identity.<\/p>\n

We develop professional identities<\/a> (\u201cI\u2019m a lawyer\u201d), organisational identities<\/a> (\u201cI\u2019m a Google employee\u201d), or as we discovered in our research, performance-based identities<\/a> (\u201cI\u2019m a top performer\u201d).<\/p>\n

Such identification can be beneficial. It has been linked with increased motivation and work performance<\/a>, and even better health<\/a>. But it can also prevent us from switching off.<\/p>\n

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\n
\nRead more:
\nHow our obsession with performance is changing our sense of self<\/a>
\n<\/strong>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

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Your work identity can make it harder to switch off<\/h2>\n

We all know people who are mentally \u201con holidays\u201d even before the holidays have started. But for others, switching off from work is not so easy. Why?<\/p>\n

One factor is our identity mix. We all have multiple identities, but the range and relative importance of our identities vary<\/a> from person to person.<\/p>\n

If work-related identities occupy a central place in how we see ourselves, they\u2019re likely to shape our thinking and behaviour beyond work hours \u2014 including during holidays. In other words, we stay mentally connected to work not because the boss or the job necessarily requires it, but because it\u2019s hard to imagine other ways of \u201cbeing ourselves\u201d.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Equally important to why some of us struggle to switch off on holidays are environmental cues<\/a>. That relaxing chair by the pool or the company of family tell us we\u2019re off work. But email alerts or phone calls, or even the simple sight of our laptop, can activate work identities and associated mindsets and behaviours. No wonder our plans for switching off are doomed.<\/p>\n

Yes, but what can I do about it?<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s worth considering all that obvious advice you\u2019ve heard on the benefits of digital detox<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is even more important in the new normal of working from home in 2020 and beyond. For many of us, the office and home are now one and the same, meaning we have to work even harder to protect non-work time from work-related incursions.<\/p>\n

From an identity perspective, though, there\u2019s a lot more we can do.<\/p>\n

First, we can scan the environment and remove any cues that might activate our work identity (beyond switching off email alerts). This might be something as simple as hiding your laptop in a drawer.<\/p>\n

At the same time, introduce cues to activate other identities. For instance, if you\u2019re a tennis player or an aspiring artist, keep your gear visible so your brain is primed to focus on those aspects of your self.<\/p>\n

Second, research suggests we can engage in \u201cidentity work<\/a>\u201d and \u201cidentity play<\/a>\u201d. That\u2019s deliberately managing and revising our identities, and even experimenting with potential new ones. Imagining and trying new and more complex versions of ourselves takes time, but it can be an effective antidote to an overpowering work identity.<\/p>\n

But simply trying to not think about work over the holidays is likely to do more harm than good. Much research shows trying to suppress certain thoughts tends to have the opposite effect<\/a>, making us not only have the thought more, but also feeling worse afterwards.<\/p>\n

A better approach may be to accept the thought<\/a> for what it is (a simple mental event), and naturally let your mind move to the next carriage in your train of thought.<\/p>\n

\n


\n
\nRead more:
\nWe\u2019re all going on a summer holiday \u2013 well, some of us …<\/a>
\n<\/strong>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

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In the long term, it\u2019s worth reflecting on whether you might be over-identifying<\/a> with work.<\/p>\n

One way to test this is by assessing how you feel about doing the unthinkable of completely unplugging for a while. Does that make you anxious?<\/p>\n

What about the idea of retirement \u2014 that final \u201choliday\u201d we\u2019ve worked towards our entire life? This too can be challenging for identity reasons<\/a>: giving up work can feel like giving up a part of ourselves. We can prevent that, and ensure we enjoy retirement and all other holidays, by considering what else we could use as equally valid sources of identity.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the aim is to see ourselves as the complex creatures we indeed are, defined by more than just our work, so we can make the most of our precious time away from it.<\/p>\n

\n

Disclaimer: We wrote part of this article on holidays. Academics are perhaps the best (or worst?) example<\/a> of over-identifying with work. Time for us to really practise what we preach.<\/em>\"The<\/p>\n

Dan Caprar<\/a>, Associate Professor, University of Sydney<\/a><\/em> and Ben Walker<\/a>, Lecturer (Management), Te Herenga Waka \u2014 Victoria University of Wellington<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Finally, the holidays are here \u2014 the break you\u2019ve been waiting for. You want to leave work behind, kick back …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":279854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-279853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lifestyle","mauthors-dan-caprar-university-of-sydney","mauthors-ben-walker-te-herenga-waka-victoria-university-of-wellington","mauthors-the-conversation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279853"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":279856,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279853\/revisions\/279856"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}