I remember a time before email; when our workdays ended when we left the office and, unless we ventured to the office, we did not work on weekends. Email has completely changed that. And I am not sure how I feel about that.

At about ten o’clock Thursday night I heard the sound that I have come to dread, “Droid.” That’s the sound my phone makes to tell me that I received a work email. (Although I got an iphone over the weekend so now there is a new sound that I’m dreading) I went to where the phone was charging and, for a few minutes, thought about not retrieving the email. Ultimately, my curiosity got the best of me and I looked at it.

The email was not urgent, in fact it involved an issue that my client and I had discussed in the past. But, he now agreed with some points I had made in the past and he requested my thoughts on his concessions. I did not feel obligated to respond immediately, I knew it could wait until the morning. But, thoughts about the topic of the email and my response occupied my thoughts for the next few hours, keeping me up later than I had planned on.

So, my question is this, at what time do you “turn off” the email? And, of course the associated question is do you look on the weekends? Almost every weekend, I make a promise to myself that I will not look at my nonemergency work email. Of course, every weekend, I break that promise. And, when I do, I am invariably annoyed with myself, because although the emails are generally not urgent, I feel compelled to respond.

Just because we can be reached 24/7 does it mean we have to be?