You may come home after a long, tiring day or be on vacation with family and still be checking your emails or Slack messages. It makes your work tied to you every time and makes it difficult to draw a line between your personal and professional lives. Let’s change that today with six amazing tips.
1. Enjoy Your Time by Pausing Your Work Profile
If you’re like most people and think it’s no big deal if you reply to just one email, but end up having a whole back-forth conversation, converting into a quick meeting, you need help to leave work behind.
Fortunately, Google allows you to pause your work profiles—apps like Gmail, Office, and more—if you’re using an Android phone. Here’s how Google advises you to do it.
However, these settings may differ on your phone. If so, you can also put a timer or schedule for how long in a day you want to use these apps by adjusting the settings this way:
Go to your device Settings. Search for Digital Wellbeing. Click on Screen Time. Select the apps you want to pause. Set a timer for their active time. Click OK.
Once the usage limit is reached for the day, it will pause these apps for you automatically. You can set the timer for 8-9 hours and pause your work profile once your working hours are over.
It’s essential to note that the timer resets at midnight. But the Digital Wellbeing setting on your phone also allows you to set bedtime hours. It grays out your phone once the clock hits your bedtime.
To enable it:
Go to the dashboard of Digital Wellbeing. Click on Bedtime Mode. Choose Based on Schedule. Enter your bedtime and getting-up time.
And it’s set. You can also customize the settings and enable Do Not Disturb mode along with graying of the phone during bedtime.
2. Use the FocusMe App
Focus me is an amazing app, which helps you block access to certain apps for any reason. You can block app usage, launches per day, or get breaks between launches.
It doesn’t let you edit the rules, so you won’t be able to use the blocked apps for the time limit you’ve set. That way, in a worst-case scenario, if you need to use any of those apps, you’ll need to take the longer route, which is accessing them from your laptop or computer.
Since you can’t keep those devices with you every time, it’ll help you stay away from work and enjoy your personal time as you like. Plus, there are other multiple apps available to help you relax.
Download: FocusMe for Android | iOS (Free)
3. Avoid Installing Work Apps on Your Phone
Another great way to avoid using your phone after working hours is not having the work apps on your personal cell phone at all.
Most people advise keeping your phone away completely to prevent yourself from using it, and it may be true when you’re home or going to bed, but it’s not ideal in all situations. You need to keep it with you for obvious reasons, for instance when you go outside. But it’s possible to keep these apps on the devices you don’t carry with you every time, like your laptop or tablet.
That way, you can put them away whenever needed. It’s especially good when you’re traveling or spending time with your family or friends. So, if you have your work apps downloaded on your phone, this is your sign to uninstall them.
4. Set Work Boundaries
It’s often told to perfectionists to care a little less. It’s actually true for everybody. And one way to do it is by setting boundaries for work and personal life. Let your co-workers know that you’re not available to attend work calls or reply to work emails on weekends.
It’s essential to set the right expectations if you really want to relax after work without stressing about it. And, letting them know does the job—for instance, they know that they’re sending this email but may not receive a response from your side until Monday because you don’t check your emails apps on weekends.
5. Let Go of FOMO
Let go of the fear of missing out. If you’re away from the office and still worrying about what might be happening back there, you may be tempted to check your emails, Slack conversations, or call a co-worker for a quick hello. However, it may result in a conversation about a project, a new policy, or bring up any other work-related discussion.
To ensure it doesn’t happen, get involved in something that you love doing and avoid activities that you have no interest in, like cleaning the porch just for the sake of doing something. Instead, reflect, read a book, spend time in nature, or do something that you like doing but never get a chance to do because of time restraints.
6. Create a Plan if You Want to Switch Off for Longer
If you’re going on a vacation, let your co-workers know about it in advance and take your last day or two in the office to wrap things up.
For instance, what they should do in your absence for things you’re responsible for, who they should reach out to, and where to find any particular documents. Moreover, if they might need to access your system in your absence for certain data, consider talking to your manager about sharing passwords for security purposes.
However, if you’re a solopreneur, switching off from your work apps may be a little more difficult than for full-time employees as you’re responsible for most things alone. There’s no one else to delegate tasks to.
Still, it’s essential to let your clients know for how long you’re going to be away from the office and can’t take any new projects. So, they don’t send you any updates or make work-related requests when you’re out, making you check your emails or work apps on your trip. Finally, set an automatic response to your emails to ensure they don’t expect an urgent reply from your side.
If you’re a Gmail user, you can set your automatic response by going to the General settings, scrolling all the way down, and saving your response text in the empty field. Then set a date for how long you wish to send this email. And it’s done.
Switch Off and Relax: Work Can Wait
Staying involved in your work activities all the time may cause you to think that your life revolves around your career, but that’s not the case. Hence, use these tips to switch off your work apps and take full control of your time and relax.
