Why you're checking work emails on holidays (and how to stop)
Finally, the holidays are here 鈥� the break you鈥檝e been waiting for. You want to leave work behind, kick back and enjoy time with family and friends.
But you鈥檙e still checking work emails and taking work calls. Even if you are at a remote location that screams holiday, you鈥檙e still thinking about work, or even doing work, although you promised yourself this time would be different.
If this sounds familiar, you鈥檙e not the only one聽聽on holidays.
One reason is you, like many others, might derive a strong sense of self from your work.
Work helps shape your identity
Humans crave answers to the question 鈥渨ho am I?鈥�. One place we find these answers is in the activities we do 鈥� 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.
We develop聽聽(鈥淚鈥檓 a lawyer鈥�),聽聽(鈥淚鈥檓 a Google employee鈥�), or as we discovered in our research,聽聽(鈥淚鈥檓 a top performer鈥�).
Such identification can be beneficial. It has been linked with聽, and even聽. But it can also prevent us from switching off.
Your work identity can make it harder to switch off
We all know people who are mentally 鈥渙n holidays鈥� even before the holidays have started. But for others, switching off from work is not so easy. Why?
One factor is our identity mix. We all have multiple identities, but the range and relative importance of our identities聽聽from person to person.
If work-related identities occupy a central place in how we see ourselves, they鈥檙e likely to shape our thinking and behaviour beyond work hours 鈥� 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鈥檚 hard to imagine other ways of 鈥渂eing ourselves鈥�.
Equally important to why some of us struggle to switch off on holidays are聽. That relaxing chair by the pool or the company of family tell us we鈥檙e 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.
Yes, but what can I do about it?
It鈥檚 worth considering all that obvious advice you鈥檝e heard on the benefits of聽.
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.
From an identity perspective, though, there鈥檚 a lot more we can do.
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.
At the same time, introduce cues to activate other identities. For instance, if you鈥檙e a tennis player or an aspiring artist, keep your gear visible so your brain is primed to focus on those aspects of your self.
Second, research suggests we can engage in 鈥溾�� and 鈥溾��. That鈥檚 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.
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聽, making us not only have the thought more, but also feeling worse afterwards.
A better approach may be to聽聽for what it is (a simple mental event), and naturally let your mind move to the next carriage in your train of thought.
The aim is to see ourselves as the complex creatures we indeed are, defined by more than just our work
In the long term, it鈥檚 worth reflecting on whether you might be聽聽with work.
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?
What about the idea of retirement 鈥� that final 鈥渉oliday鈥� we鈥檝e worked towards our entire life? This too聽: 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.
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.
This article was first published on as '.
It was authored by Associate Professor Dan Caprar from the University of Sydney Business School and from the Victoria University of Wellington.聽