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Muting work notifications on vacation

Published onFeb 26, 2020
Muting work notifications on vacation

For many of us, part of our online stress comes from being “always on” for our jobs. Having to check work messages when we want to be spending quality time with our families, or relaxing on vacation, can keep us from replenishing our reserves in the way we need to.

But as I described in Keep Calm and Log On, there are ways to lessen this stress by being mindful of how we’re using notifications. And we can work with our workplaces to shape expectations of what happens when we’re not on the clock—especially managers, who are in a position to make work stress more manageable for their direct reports.

Asana has a helpful article on planning away time for your entire team that has tips that can be useful even if you don’t use Asana. For example, they suggest re-assigning routine tasks that are usually yours and setting reminders for things you need to do when you get back.

Setting your email and chat to auto-respond that you’re away is an important part of managing others’ expectations of how quickly you can respond. Here’s how to set away messages in Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex, Skype, Basecamp, and Slack.

And, of course, you don’t need to wait until you get a vacation to set these! Outlook and Basecamp, among others, let you set away messages for shorter, repeat time periods like evenings and weekends.

For more tips on managing online stress, pick up a copy of Keep Calm and Log On.

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