It’s taken me 3 years to get to this point, but I’m finally able to “turn off” my business e-mail in the evening and on weekends. This has been a very liberating thing for me. I stick the e-mails in a “To Reply” folder and address them first thing in the morning the next business day.
Of course, the downside is when there is a flood of e-mails over a weekend that all get backed up. For some reason this weekend there were a lot of folks on the net checking out Tasks Pro™ and looking for custom WordPress development. I spent about 3-4 hours today just replying to e-mail. That really cuts into the old development time.
It is rather hard to get into the mode of only checking your email during business hours so congratulations is much deserved. I have noticed that if I reply outside of business hours, my clients then expect me to be available 24/7. If I stay strong and only email during business hours, my clients respect that and the 1am “emergencies” no longer occur (as much).
Glad that you’re cutting the cord, dude.
Yes, getting cranked up first thing can suck, but that’s life for us 9-to-5 drones. And before you say that I don’t get much overnight mail, let me note that 1) yeah, some of my customers do check email late at night and 2) I work international stuff.
The real key is to not be at a point where you let email be an interruptor for you during the business day. Well, if you have the kind of job that allows that. Mine sure doesn’t; I have to live in the stream of data. But then I’m a project office person, and my job is fundamentally foofy.