Episode 134: Trapped in Work Mode: Why You Can’t Stop Checking Emails (And How to Fix It)

At what point did work stop ending. When did we shift from doing a hard days graft to being available all the time.

If you have ever felt that work never really ends or if you’re a leader trying to keep your team engaged without burning them out then this is the episode for you.

In this episode, Matt Talks about:

• How we got to 24/7 working
• The cognitive cost of always being on
• Why helping people disconnect will produce better results
• Strategies to help people disconnect
• How you can help yourself

If you have a question for the podcast or are interested in working with Matt, you can reach out at:

• Email: info@wellnesseducationdubai.com
• Website: www.wellnesseducationdubai.com
• Instagram: @wellness_education_dubai
• Facebook: @mattmarneyfitness
• LinkedIn: Matt Marney (Wellness Education Dubai)

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The Matt Money Podcast. Hello, welcome to episode 134 of the Matt Money Podcast. Hope you're well, guys. And so today's episode is it wasn't planned. It was it's been quite a spontaneous kind of reaction to my world over the last few days. So I had a a call with a a client, a one-to-one client. This was an introductory call. We discussed lots of different aspects of this guy's life, and one thing that was quite apparent when we sort of looked at stress and we were gauging stressors in his life was this constant on checking emails, work calls, clients. I mean, you know, this guy is is never off. And so this was an area we were gonna obviously drill into and try and address, and we spoke about why this might not be helpful. And then I talk a took a workshop the following day, Saturday just gone, uh, and it was a it was called Balance Over Burnout, was a group for a group of females uh here in Dubai, and we were discussing chronic stress, and it was just like this same stuff was coming up. Um, it was just so apparent because of this conversation I'd had the day before, and I think we all kind of instinctively know this is going on. This never off kind of checking the phone, WhatsApp, Slack, email, social media, 24-hour news cycles. It's pretty hideous. And and a few of the ladies there were full-time mums, but they were also in full-time work, so they were they were juggling all sorts of stuff, and I just chewing this idea over, it's like at what point did did work stop ending? And when do we shift from this like putting in a solid day's graft to being available like at all times? And we were discussing this on Saturday, and you know, historically, uh it just aligns with technology. I mean, late 90s, early 2000s. I don't know if you remember the the BlackBerry that people had that had email on it. And I remember friends of mine who had this phone, like, what you got your email on there? Wow, this is amazing. And you just sort of like felt you were ahead of the game, and then obviously the iPhone in sort of you know 2010. Um in fact, I remember a good friend of mine, Terry, uh, and we were I had still had one of the Nokia phones, I think something like that, and he had an iPhone. And I remember him asking me, like, you know, why I wouldn't get an iPhone. I was like, oh, you know, I don't need it, blah, blah, blah. And I remember him saying to me, you get emails. And I distinctly remember him saying, because I was managing a gym at the time, and he was like, Why wouldn't you want access to your emails outside of work? And at the time I thought it was so revolutionary. I'm thinking, oh my god, of course, why wouldn't I want to be able to check emails? I mean, fast forward into the modern world, we've we've just got all sorts of stuff on these, but it's not even just our phones. I mean, our iPads have got all the same stuff, our laptops. It's pretty hideous, and the stats are quite supportive. Here's a stat from Gallup: like 70% of employees check email after 10 pm and before getting out of bed in the morning. So we have this feeling that things are a little bit out of hand, and the stats support this. So, look, if you've ever felt that work never really ends, or if you're a leader, perhaps trying to keep your team engaged without burning them out, then this is the episode for you. And by the end of it, I want you to have some real strategies, either for the company, if you're a leader or an employee or a mum or a dad or just a person in this world, some strategies for yourself that are going to help you break free from the always-on culture and hopefully start working smarter, not just longer. So I think the best place to start is probably why this constant being on is a problem in the first place. Because I am sure, and I have seen this firsthand when I do this kind of work in organizations, that some people being busy is a badge of honour. Actually, I'd say culturally, we we celebrate busyness, and that's this is a another thing we can maybe talk about later. But there are many people who would go, well, look, you know, I'm paid a lot of money by my company to work, and it's the whole thing of the grind and constantly be working and churning stuff out. And there are figures in the business world at the moment, they're on social media, who I you know value their their input, but they're they're definitely of the grind, grind, always on type culture. If you want to achieve something, you've got to work hard. And I don't disagree, but I think it's important to understand why being on all the time is going to be detrimental. So, a question I I pose when I do this work within organizations, uh, and you can you can pause the podcast in a moment just to have maybe reflect and think about this. But the question I ask is this is mainly if I'm with sitting with a group of leaders, I say, what do you pay your staff for? And I throw that out there and you see eyebrows start to move, and you hear a lot of different things back. Some people, it's very specific. I pay them to do this job, I pay them to churn out numbers. Lots of different things come back. Some people just sit there and they're like, Well, what do you mean? But fundamentally, if you work in the knowledge sector, office-based type stuff, which is the modern world, the majority of work takes place there, you pay your staff to think their cognition, their brain health, that is what you pay them for. That is the asset to the organization. So an example I would use is Cristiano Ronaldo, the footballer. The reason I mention him is he's here in the Middle East, he plays in Saudi Arabia, he's paid a huge salary. Now, when Cristiano Ronaldo finishes a match, he is not escorted off the pitch and then taken to a gym and trained hard, work out hard for six hours after a game. No. Cristiano Ronaldo goes home, he has a massage, he eats, he rests. Why? Because when he comes back for the next match, they want him physically able to perform. His physical ability is the asset to the football club. It's no different to the staff in your organization who you pay huge amounts of money to. They are paid to strategically think, critically think. It might be a creative sector. If your clients or your staff are client-facing, rather, you their ability to react well to clients, quite important. And if you want to flip it, if you're just an individual who's interested in getting on in his or her career and achieving and climbing the corporate ladder, your asset is your cognitive function, your brain health. Now, when we don't look after the asset, i.e., cognition, we get cognitive overload. This is going to impact your ability to critically think, strategic thinking, problem solving, memory consolidation, your reaction to clients, to staff, all sorts of issues. 76% of employees at some stage feel burnt out. Now, burnout, a big association with that, is cognitive overload, cognitive fatigue. So that's why this stuff is really important to consider. Now, to help you understand this a little bit more, just grab some water. We kind of need to think about how we use our brain. So there's a couple of modes, I suppose, we could be in. We can be in the TPN, the task positive network, or the DMN, the default mode network. All right, I might use different words as I go through this podcast. But a task positive network means you are on task. You are concentrating, you are using the front of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, you are in a conversation, you are focused, you're on task. Now, this mode of thinking or attention is energy demanding. It requires a lot of glucose. In fact, your brain burns through glucose when you're on task. You're burning more calories, believe it or not, when you are concentrating. It's why you feel tired and fatigued after a busy day of meetings and it's been cognitively demanding. But we have a finite amount of task network available. Four to five hours in a day. This is where you can, you know, strategically use that. We call them ultradian rhythm, so you're working on a one-hour, 90-minute blocks, have little rests. But we've got the task network, we've also got the other, which is default mode network, which is literally think of it as like daydreaming. Okay, connecting dots, consolidating memories. This is where consolidating ideas or memory consolidation really happens. So if you have staff in your organization or your role involves reports, learning new ideas, connecting dots, problem solving, you need to have a mixture. Yes, beyond tasks, a task-positive network, but you need that period when your brain is able to just switch off almost. It's like this program running in the background, your subconscious mind is connecting and problem solving. And you might know this yourself. I don't know if any of you guys or girls have, you know, you're you're trying to put together a presentation or a speech, you know, and you just find yourself, I do it a lot, I just find myself like, oh, there's no ideas here. I don't know. I've never I have a bit of time away from the desk, I go for a walk or maybe the next day, and just ideas and solutions just kind of slot into place. Things like just washing the dishes, just doing stuff that's quite you know, relaxed and mundane is going to allow you to be in that default mode network. Now, the reason it's important to understand the task positive network and the default mode network is that we need a bit of both. Now, what this constant on world we live in has resulted in is that you know people are engaging with the task positive network all the time. You know, that stat that I read out about people looking at emails after 10 pm. I mean, this is the hideous nature of WhatsApp groups, anything work-related, because you might think, I'll just have a quick look at my emails before I go to bed. When you do that, you shift from that default mode network into task positive network, and your subconscious mind is already it's ticking over in the background. What's the problem with this? Well, you get this buildup of uh adrenaline cortisol because when you're on task, you are going to be actually your nervous system's gonna be ramped up, so it can impact sleep. But what you're not doing is allowing yourself to go into this default mode network where you really need to consolidate ideas. It's almost like your brain needs time to unwind and connect. And this is so important for people that are trying to learn new skills within their role. You know, a lot of people are just churning out tasks, but their skill is not improving. And if you've got kids, and you know, we've got the exam period coming up now. This is why giving kids time away from the desk, just training yourself to the desk for six hours a night in preparation for an exam, not the most skillful way to learn for or learn any new skills or knowledge and understanding because of the importance of memory consolidation. And so we need to really consider this balance, this fine dance. People had it before, they went home, they did work, they went home, they shut down, there was nowhere being contacted. We've got this really strange world now where we can be on all the time, and it's not helpful, it's not helpful at all. Um, we're not spending enough time consolidating ideas, we're spending time on all the time. And so, look, if you are a leader or a manager, and you know, or you're just concerned about your own career, or even as I said mentioned earlier, you're a parent or you're someone who wants to show up and react in a better way, and you want those people to critically think or learn new skills, then perhaps a way of reframing this, and this is just something I want to throw out there, is that maybe your best work happens when you're not working. The big question is where to start. It's definitely a challenge, and for companies that I work with, this is it's quite hard to know where to start. And a big suggestion from me would be a right to disconnect. Now, the right to disconnect is law in a few countries, so obviously governments have recognized this at state level and people need support. In France, it's called the El Cormy Law, and it was established in 2017, and just basically means people have the right not to be contacted outside of work hours, so they have the right not to respond to emails, not to be on all the time, and it's it's there to protect, and and obviously employees have the legal right not to do that. It's been rolled out in Australia, in in Canada, it's not always as easy to implement, and we're gonna discuss how you can possibly navigate this because it's not straightforward, but there are individual companies. There are some here in the UAE, there are some forward-thinking companies elsewhere, Volkswagen, uh, they spring to mind, where they decided to, even though it wasn't law in that country, they recognize the value, they recognize how beneficial it is to everyone in the organization, so they implement their own policy around this. And the evidence is pretty clear, you know, organizations that implement a right to disconnect policy, 90% of employees are in favour. Companies who introduce it, these are the surveys. 92% of people who have a right to disconnect policy at place, they they share that they feel that there is work-life balance as opposed to only 80% of people. Um stress, places that implement or right to disconnect, stress levels, 28% as opposed to 38% of employees in companies where they don't. So I'm not saying this is the fix for everything, but it's definitely a really helpful strategy, and it can be done. Now, there are probably some of you listening now who are like, right to disconnect. Sounds a bit anti-business, Matt. That's not how we roll. You know, we've got demanding clients, and I hear you, and I am gonna take you through some steps and some ideas about how you can implement this stuff. But anti-business, or maybe it's the biggest productivity hack that nobody is using. I'll let you be the gauge of that. But look, if you are thinking or you want to take this idea to your manager, if you're an employee in an organization, then there's a few things that might be helpful. The first thing is if you're going to roll it out, you need to define clearly what the hours are. It needs to be clear, crystal clear. And here's the other thing leaders, if you're listening, you have to model it. It doesn't work if you're not modelling the behaviors at the top. I know what some of you are possibly thinking now. You're already sitting there thinking, well, what about if we've got an emergency? Don't worry, you know, you work through this stuff, you establish urgent communication protocols. And actually, before I go on with more solutions, this is definitely a collaborative discussion. You know, this is gonna differ company to company, and just a blanket statement of we are not contactable, that that doesn't work in the modern world. I understand that, and different demands for different industries and and different organizations, but what appears to be happening at the moment is there there is nothing happening. It's just like it's like the wild west. Every company where we have an open discussion around this stuff, it's insane. There's like WhatsApp groups and Slacks and like messaging services, uh, teams, there's email, I mean, and nobody has got a handle on it. It's almost it's all personal responsibility, it's down to you to manage this stuff, which I agree there is an element of personal responsibility, but it's definitely helpful to sit down in a room, and this can start with C-suite, can start with managers, and then it filters down, but it really is useful to get the teams involved because they're you know kind of the ones doing the job. So you can strategically work this stuff out, but what I think is really helpful is that there is some kind of framework in place, some kind of guidelines. People know the rules because at the moment there are none, and as a result, you've got people constantly on. Couple of things you can do, and actually, what I'll do is I'll come back with challenges that I face when trying to implement this stuff with organizations. So the first one, define clearly what the hours are. Leaders need to model, model the behaviors, have urgent communication protocols in place. Another one you might hear, I work late at night, that's just my circadian rhythm. You know, I'm on flexible hours, I'm on a different time zone, whatever it is, that's absolutely fine. You know, what you can do is delayed sending on your emails. I think instinctively everyone knows what that is, but when you look into this stuff and you sit with people, you ask people, do you actually know how to do it? Quite often people don't. So that's where you come together. You ensure that training is available, you ensure that staff know how to do it. So delayed sending. People having, you know, on their email, and again, some people need to be shown this, they're like they're out of office hours, clearly on their signature. Here's a big one employee guilt. Now, here in Dubai, that is definitely one of the major barriers to any kind of implementation of right to disconnect. 200 different nationalities here, many different cultures, and different cultures have different approaches to work. And some people, it's like say, it's more of a badge of honor in certain cultures to be working hard, it's the grind. So, with that, there needs to be clear communication from leaders, from HR. Clear communication, and not just one little day where we discuss it and off you go. It's like, no, this is what we do, this is why we're doing it. You can include that in people's contracts. That's quite a nice thing to do. Rewrite everyone's contracts. Yeah, everyone to sign it, you don't have to change the contract, you just put this in the contract. That is a clear indication that you take this stuff seriously. Why are you doing it? You're trying to do it to help your staff, to help your team, and they will appreciate it. Most people, people just like some clarity around stuff. Yeah, rules and regulations. We like to know where we stand. You can reinforce this with right to disconnect champions, you know, people within the organization who are, you know, particularly people who are on board, you know. It's like, right, your job is to boots on the ground, you know, find out what's going on, how is it landing with people? Are people sticking to it? Because here's the thing people will bend the rules. You're gonna get people who are gonna go, waste of time. This is not how we do this, it's never been like this, so I'm gonna carry on doing what I'm doing. These people need a little slap on the wrist in a very nice diplomatic. Way, sorry, this is not what we do. Keep drawing people back, drawing people back. The bottom line is if you want to, and this is fundamentally what this is about, this comes under their whole workplace well-being banner. I know people automatically think about yoga and Pilates and breath work and meditation and apps. No, this stuff, the work, it's huge. It's a huge lever that you can pull to improve people's well-being. And a huge amount of people are going to benefit from this. Their performance is going to improve because of what we just mentioned. Yeah? Cognitive performance is the asset. Protect it. This is a really useful way to do that. So you get feedback from people, get people to reinforce it. A big one when it comes to this right to disconnect is the holiday. Like I'll share an I'll share a story with you. I I did a a corporate a couple of years ago, and it was a one-day off site for an estate agency in the UK. I was back for the summer. There was some nice stuff, and we we discussed stress management and all the lovely stuff, and we discussed exercise and breath work to reduce stress. It was great, but I floated the idea of right to disconnect. It wasn't planned. I kind of, you know, just threw it out there and it was like a hand grenade at first. It was apparent that this was a real issue. When we scratched the surface and dug in, it was like, my God, there was like all these WhatsApp groups, and it but it was super informative. And the owner of the organization was in the room that day, which was really helpful. All the senior team were there, and and actually we just created a task around it. We spent a good 90 minutes on it. We got groups to sit down, to to brainstorm, to problem solve. I probably wouldn't do it that way now. I normally want to sit with C-suite with leaders first and actually find out what works logistically for the company before we kind of open it out to everyone. But but they did. They sat there and the people that were doing the work had input and they were able to ensure that you know this stuff can actually work, you know, if somebody's off on the holiday, and that was the big question. What happens when somebody's away? Because surely that's the point of a holiday. That's why a holiday's, you know, been it's legal, right of people at work, and there's a reason for it. Think about it. What's the asset? If you pay someone a lot of money, you want them on holiday. You want them coming back off holiday and you want them recharged and ready to go, and you want them performing. This is what you pay people for. This is also something else. I mean, I haven't got time to discuss this on today's podcast, but you know, this whole thing of just output, just hours worked, as opposed to you know the quality of the work that's delivered. That's a separate topic. But back to holidays. So we had this discussion, this was in the summer, and a few weeks later, I was at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. For those of you who don't know, it's a big like comedy and arts festival in Scotland. It's huge, it's on for a month. Love it. And I was there, and a good friend of mine, who his name is Terry, I mentioned him earlier, the one with the iPhone. Terry was had been on holiday for a week and he came up to Edinburgh and he met us there, and we we spent uh five or six days at the festival. So we met Terry for the for breakfast on the first morning, came up that morning, and we we walked in, had breakfast, and just said to him, Oh, how did the, you know, how did that session land with with the team? He was like, Oh, yeah, yeah, everyone enjoyed it, blah blah blah. I knew he was on holiday, and I said, Are you doing any of the whole have you looked at any emails? And this was just so but it was so powerful. He said, No, I haven't looked at my email once since I've been on holiday. I was like, oh my god, okay, cool. I said, Is that is that normal? And he said this to me. He said, Matt, this is the first time in 20 years that I've been off and I haven't engaged with work. And I was like, wow. And I said to him, how does it feel? And he said, It feels like I'm on holiday. I mean, that it was just so powerful, and it was that realization that actually this is really helpful and it makes perfect sense. And look, if you're an organization and it it person to person, different personality types, some people, it's just the way they're wired, you know, they go on holiday and it would cause them more stress not to be checking in. You know, they perhaps they are leading a project, whatever it is. Okay, I get that. Right? You're not just saying you can't contact work when you're holiday, it's fine, but maybe some frameworks around that stuff, maybe like just some kind of like framework to help people navigate, i.e., I'm gonna check in my emails at this time, or I'll take just something that that means you're not constantly dipping back into task positive network, dipping back, dipping back, not fully recharging the batteries cognitively, just allowing ideas to to to. I mean, you hear the the sayings about great ideas come to people and either in the shower or they're just they're going for a walk. And I think this is the value. If you work in a an industry where creative thinking, problem solving, if that's part of your role, being off work is really helpful. Anyway, I'm going on too long for this, but holidays. And look, if someone goes on holiday and they're in your organization and the organization can't function without that person's input, that's a red flag. That's like, okay, maybe we need to ensure that some of these tasks that this person is doing, other people can fill in and do, or make sure there's some really good notes, and again, you can have the whole emergency protocol. Look, if I need to get hold of you, I'll ring you. But look, go on holiday and forget about work for two weeks, come back recharged. You know, people can't go on holiday and disconnect. What's the point? You know, that's that's the thing. So, sort of wrapping this up, I suppose clear boundaries around the right to disconnect is important. Sitting down and talking about this stuff, not just throwing a blanket sort of across the organization rule now. It's like it's collaborative, and I think the the crucial thing is when you roll something out like right to disconnect, is that just providing some anonymous feedback. So it's that whole thing of constantly checking in, getting feedback from people who experience this stuff and making changes that you go as you go along. But trust me, it did it's something that all organisations can do. There's no need to drastically change management styles, or it's not, this is just simply about the work. But I've seen it firsthand, and the results can be can be really, really powerful. Now, you might be sitting there thinking, hmm, there's no chance we're gonna roll that out anytime soon in my workplace. It's okay. There is stuff you can do, there is a personal responsibility aspect. So I'm gonna give you some suggestions that may help you if you are working in an organization and you're feeling this overwhelm of constantly being on. And the first one is clearly defining your work hours, and you can do that by adding it to your email signature. I mentioned this before. And if you don't know how to do this, ask someone in your department or just ask a friend, and you clearly state what your working hours are. If that doesn't sit comfortable, you can even add in in an emergency, please call. What that does is that just reassures people that you will address it, but you there isn't that well, it can sometimes add a bit more uh relaxation on the part of the person sending the email because you've been clear. Oh, okay, cool. I can I can let that go now because they're not going to respond till tomorrow, and I can move on, and it's a separate issue with this whole hideous you know, interruption of tasks because of emails. I mean, I'll I'll probably do a whole separate podcast on that. So clearly define your workouts, add it to your email signature, reinforce it by speaking to your manager. So quite often when I work one-to-one with people in organizations, there's almost like they they mind read their boss. So their boss isn't actually, or your boss isn't actually expecting a response, but you're unsure of what the protocols are, you're unsure of the expectation, so you do it anyway. And then it starts to become the norm. And then you do it, so someone else in your team knows that you do it, so everyone's doing it, and everyone's just, you know, and it and this is the thing about having an open discussion, and this is why a right to disconnect policy can really help, because nobody has a clue. And when there is job insecurity, or you know, you're quite career-minded and you want to get ahead, there's this, you know, I've got to be on, I've got to be looking back. And there are certain industries that are definitely uh worse than others. So speak to your manager and just have a conversation and just say, you know, I'm thinking about this, you might have family, you might even send them this podcast, or you might share stuff about rights of disconnect, or just share some stuff about, you know, I need some downtime, so I'm coming into work and performing well. So have that honest conversation and you'll find out whether or not this is gonna land with your manager, or it may even just start a dialogue around, you know, what expectation is. And your manager may even turn around and say, Oh god, you know what? I'm I wasn't even aware that you guys were unsure. Let's let's sit down and have a conversation. A really nice thing you can do cognitively, which helps you kind of pick the phone up less, is what we call the workday wrap-up. So, you know, you actually there's a task. So just you finish the workday, you think about the day ahead, and you literally write your to-do list. So what it what it is, it's like getting that stuff out of your head, and what it is that you're gonna you're gonna deal with tomorrow. And sometimes that can be really helpful. It can it can sort of help the subconscious mind, because you know, you say into your subconscious mind, don't worry, I'm on it, I'm fully aware. When we're back tomorrow, I'm gonna get this stuff done. If you work at home, there could be a ritual of like laptop in the desk, something. I mean, that's again the whole work from home thing, blurred lines is hideous, really. It is since COVID. Nobody's got a clue, um, but sometimes that can be really helpful. Um, accessing the default mode network on the way home, that mind-wandering stuff on your commute, that can be really helpful. It's slightly off topic, but a lot of people will finish work, get in the car, podcast, you know, consuming more information, you know, listening to a really detailed work-related podcast, or even a science-based one, a self-help one, where you're still in that task positive network. You know, you're still there trying to problem solve, you know, and think, and then what happens is you get home and you walk through the door, and you you need to consolidate the day that's just happened, so you're not present with your friends or family, and that can be a stressor in itself. So giving yourself time on the way home to consolidate thoughts can be can be really helpful. If you work from home, maybe signifying the day or signalling the the end of the day and the beginning of your evening will be maybe laptop in the drawer, go for a walk. So have a 20-minute walk, it's just part of the routine. It's like work is finished, and I walk through that door and I'm home. Another tip could be just start to, if you're struggling with the whole I can't implement this straight away, Matt. Well, maybe just play around with delaying your responses on emails. I mean, I I basically took the blue ticks off my WhatsApp. I mean, that's a whole separate thing as well, isn't it? The WhatsApp thing, but I took the blue ticks off because I just I just felt this pressure of responding to people, you know. It just I thought, oh my god, they know I've seen it, I feel rude. And the email stuff, it can be I'm sure you could probably go in there and there's there's notifications. I I think sometimes it's set up where they know you've read it. Have a think about that, and then just maybe play with delaying the responses, just you know, an hour, or maybe leaving it to the next morning. It's just to reassure yourself that the world isn't going to implode if I don't respond to the email. Separate work phone, personal phone, that's quite handy if you've got the work emails on the personal phone. I know you know, ideally the work that the phone goes into a completely separate, but it's the modern world, the phone's out and about, we stare at it a lot, but maybe having a separate work and personal phone, you can create a bit of separation there, you know, and on your signature, you can maybe give your personal number on there if people need to get hold of you. They've got the personal phone which they can ring, so that's a that's quite a useful one. Now, I could do a whole podcast on this next topic, which is this fear of missing out, the dopamine reward system. I mean, we pick up our phone on average 144 times a day, on average. And every time we pick up our phone, it's how social media gets us addicted, it's it's why emails can be so addictive. It's like this dopamine hip. You need to bring some awareness to this. It's a whole whole podcast on this, you know, meditation, exercise, all this stuff, getting your dopamine in other ways, but but just be aware that sometimes it's the phone itself, the picking up the phone, um, and you get a dopamine hip. So just bring in some awareness to that. And I suppose strategies around digital minimalism, can you can you just put your phone in a different room? Even for a period of time. I mean, I've started doing it in the evening as I'm winding down, if I'm in bed reading, or even if I'm watching something on my iPad before I go to bed, and I'll reference TV viewing in a moment, but having my phone just it's in the living room now. I do I still do use it as an alarm, but it's on it's on aeroplane mode all night. But it just feels it's just the habit I've got into now. It feels quite refreshing because I'll be watching a TV series that I really enjoy. I'm still picking it up, you know, digital addiction, it's not our fault really. It's all these engineers, social media, they know what they're doing. Um, you know, it's that whole our attention, attention economy. Anyway, that's a separate topic. I've done a podcast on that. So some strategies around the phone. Now I mentioned the TV. So, you know, switching off task positive network and default mode network, the type of stuff you're watching late at night can keep you hooked into either mode. So if you're watching something like a high-paced drama, quite intense, you're going to be in task positive network. You're switched on because you're trying to figure out what's going on. You have to be focused because that's just the nature of the uh the genre of TV that you're watching. So that shifts you into task positive network. So you're still jacked up. That can influence your ability to down-regulate, consolidate ideas. If you want to really take yourself away from task positive network and into the default mode network, nature programs. Um, I've started exploring this myself. Go on Netflix, put wildlife programs in. There's a stack. Um, but if you really want to hack this stuff, watching nature programs before you go to bed, really useful. Uh, even the type of book you read, again, it's that same principle that applies. Um, so TV can be quite important. Um, delaying the email thing may be a habit of uh you know delaying when you look at your first email in the morning. So these small habits. Stop looking at your phone or emails at a certain time, and then don't look at your first email until 9.30 in the morning. I think all these little small steps towards this freedom can really be helpful. You know, you start to look at your emails at 9.30 in the morning, you quickly start to realise nothing major's happened, didn't make any difference. Hopefully, you can stretch that out, and then hopefully it leaks into sort of minimising distractions during the day, which is a completely separate topic. Well, it's not, it's the same thing, but too detailed. I'll probably do a separate one for that. So hopefully, there's some some stuff you can you can chew on here, the personal responsibility thing, but uh a big one is really, I think maybe start with a conversation with your boss, and definitely just putting that email signature on there to let people know can be quite freeing. Um, and so just just remember that you know what your asset is to the company, it's probably your cognitive function, so you want to protect that asset. So sometimes less is more. So I think I'm gonna wrap the podcast up now. So lots of information to digest, and all I want to sort of leave you with is that look, if you want to think better or lead better, or just perform better, then you have to disconnect not just from emails, but from the constant cognitive demands that keep that brain locked into that work mode, that task-positive network, and prevent it from ever fully recovering. This isn't just about burnout prevention, you know, it's about sustained higher performance, which is what organizations want from their staff and what we want as individuals. And as individuals, this means setting clear boundaries with work because your best insights, your best decisions, and your best creativity don't come when you're grinding and looking and answering emails, they come when your brain has space to recover. And for managers and leaders, this isn't about just you know self-care, this is about protecting the cognitive function of your workforce. Your team is mentally drained, they're not working smarter, they're they're working just working slower, making more mistakes, and losing the ability to innovate. So maybe you could send this email to your boss that might be an introduction. Send the link on an email or WhatsApp and give it a title. The title of the email could be our best work really does happen when we're not working. Speak to you soon,