A colleague and I were recently talking about the “old days.” Back in the day, we would leave the office at 5:00 on a Friday night and could not be reached again until Monday morning when we returned to the office. During those days, our weekends belonged to us. 

That was before we had home fax machines which then morphed into email and cell phones. I never had a personal fax machine but, of course, have email and a cell phone.  And, as I am sure all of you do, I have my cell phone set up so that I see my work emails as they come in. 

I am a true believer in the concept that we all need weekly time to disconnect and have personal time for ourselves. But with our work email coming directly to us through our cell phones, do we really take the time on the weekend to disconnect and relax? I am writing this blog on a Saturday morning, and I have already responded to numerous work-related emails.

How do you handle the weekend professional emails? Do you read them all? Do you triage them? If so, how?