I took the month of August off. Sort of. I had a bunch of running around to do and we had planned our first ever 2-week vacation. For the first half of the month, I caught up on various CLEs some outstanding work, took the pup to the vet, and ran my son to YouTube camp. Not really relaxing, but needed. But then I legit took two weeks of vacation.
For the first week of our vacation, we took a cruise. I decided to not purchase WIFI for myself. I did purchase the plan for my husband and son. I downloaded enough audio books and movies to keep me entertained for 7 days and took enough yarn to finish a scarf that I have been knitting for my husband. I was going to disconnect.
I have to tell you it was glorious. No phone calls. No text messages. No emails. I didn’t even turn on my computer for the entire week. I also didn’t miss any of it. I had my phone and took lots of pictures of our vacation and I was able to use it for music and audio books without internet. Not one time did I say to myself “Wow. I really miss email. I wish I could check my email right now.”
In full disclosure, I hate email. I think it is overused and a poor method of communicating with people. We have replaced direct human conversations where we can hear the inflection of tone and express emotion through interjections with grammatically failing communications often expressed in ALL CAPS. There is no real ability to ask for clarification and assumptions are made quickly. Or, pre-drafted responses are used which are often tone depth or ignore the original comments. This is especially true in dealing with anything in IT. The instruction to “clear your cookies” is the modern-day version of “did you turn if off then back on again.” In short, email creates the need for more email to undo the issues created by email.
Then there is spam. Between my various accounts I had over 300 spam emails during my 1-week hiatus. I have some serious spam filters set up so I do check and delete my spam regularly. But seriously, I don’t need 100 emails from political candidates asking me for money. Victoria’s Secret, Royal Caribbean, and the bar association don’t need to send me two emails a day each.
After a week I had about 500 emails in my primary email accounts. Out of all of the emails, there were only about 20 emails that were from clients or for personal things that directly required my attention and all of them waited until I returned from vacation for a response. In other words, the world of email went on without me for a week and I was not drowning in emails upon my return.
But let’s back up a bit. While we were on the cruise, I discovered the real issue with disconnecting. While I didn’t need to reach out to anyone, people really needed to reach out to me. The idea of truly disconnecting from phone, email, internet, text, etc. for 7 days is so foreign to us these days that it is hard for everyone else to process. Case in point: my daughter.
My college kid was our pet and house sitter while we were gone. Don’t worry, she was handsomely compensated. After a few days, she spoke with me and her father via WhatsApp and was appalled that I had not responded to her messages. I could not have been clearer to everyone that I was completely unavailable for a week. I even posted this as my Facebook status. But the very idea that I had no access to her communications was mind-boggling. I was with my husband the entire week and so she was messaging with him and he would share the communications with me. That was enough for me; I think she would have preferred direct communications.
Obviously, if you are trying to disconnect and leaving your minor children in the care of others you can’t completely cut yourself off from the world. I was fairly confident that my husband could run interference for me. I wanted to have a reminder of what it was like to when I travelled in Europe alone in my twenties, without a cell phone. It was glorious and the memories of that time remain fresh because I lived in the moment not focused on ‘real life.’
The second category of people that can’t function without me having internet are credit card companies. In reality, this saves me a bit of money. But no, I am not going to turn on my phone to receive a text from you to confirm that this is me so that I can make a purchase. Just no.
It is hard to completely disconnect. It is hard because we are in the midst of a social construct that breeds immediacy and does not allow for the true respect of personal space. Even those people you know who aren’t ‘on social media’ still have email and still answer the phone when you call.
I want to give a few tips on how to disconnect even if only for short periods of time. I get it that it may not be possible to step away for a week, after all it took me over 20 years to be able to do that. But you can find ways to remove yourself a bit each day.
- Take the fucking email off your phone: If that wasn’t harsh enough, let me say it again for those of you in the back “Take the fucking email off your phone.” Yes, I have an email account on my phone. The only people who have that email are my husband, my kid, my bestie, and a few newsletters that I subscribe to so that I have something to read in the WC and while waiting in line. The only thing that email on your phone does is force you to immediately respond or feel pressure to immediately respond to communications. I had work email on my phone for about 5 minutes back in like 2005 and hated it. I removed it and never went back. It was the best thing I ever did.
- Use the OOO: Yes, you can send me an email and read my insanely funny OOO. I have been using a perpetual Out of Office email for about 5 years now. It has evolved over time. This time I simply added the following to my standard OOO: “I am on sabbatical and will not have regular access to this email during the month of August and into early September. This email is not monitored by anyone else. I will be responding to emails as I have access to WIFI. Thank you for understanding my need to disconnect for an extended period and spend time with my family.”
- Provide lots of notice: Provide the critical or key people in your world a lot of notice. I had to keep reminding people for a few months that I would be absolutely unavailable for about 2 weeks. I then circled back with everyone that I thought might need me just before I went radio silent. It was hard for people to process that I was really going to disconnect, but everyone was respectful of my need to do it. And my clients and the lawyers I work for did not email during this time.
- Don’t answer the phone: I have been saying this for about 25 years “You don’t have to answer the phone every time it rings.” You don’t have to respond to every email you receive. You don’t have to return calls the same day. You can simply set reasonable expectations with others. Indicate on your voicemail that you will return calls within 2-3 business days. Put in your OOO email that emails will be responded to within X days. Train everyone else to slow down the pace of interactions.
- Schedule emails to be sent during working hours: Did you know that you can set up your email to be sent on a later date and time? This is probably the most useful tool that is rarely employed. Not only do I schedule emails, but I tell people that I’m scheduling emails. Even if you draft a response at 7 pm, schedule it to be sent the following day.
- Be understanding: It wasn’t until this year that I stopped getting frustrated when it took someone days or a week to respond to my emails or calls. After all, I have always been the person to get right back to everyone and not leave things out there. It honestly frustrated me if I sent someone an email and felt that they should respond right away and they didn’t. It took me a long time to respect the need for others to respond at their own pace, but as a result, I was able to give myself the peace of a real break.
Setting these boundaries for yourself are critical to being able to maintain not just your emotional health but your healthy interactions with others. In a world where many people have to use vacation days or sick days just to run errands, or schedule doctor’s appointments, the need to disconnect for even brief periods of time are key.
Amy is a former litigator who closed her litigation practice in 2021. She now handles transactional intellectual property matters, music and entertainment matters, and works with other attorneys to create succession plans for their law firms. Amy is available to speak with bar associations or present CLE on succession planning. This blog is part of her succession planning series on how lawyers can better manage their time and maintain sanity in their practice.
