Email (life)hack for better vacation with(out) email
I have a small lifehack that I’d like to share with you. The fact of today is that you can’t life without an email. OK, maybe you can, but in my world, it would be pretty damn difficult and inconvenient. And so I have email always with me, on my phone. But what if you don’t want to be email-able? Like on vacation?
Months ago (maybe years), I’ve read an article about some company that deletes all incoming emails for people on vacation. Which I think it’s pretty good. I think the times when everybody was constantly online and ready to jump in are slowly over. Recovery is as important, maybe even more, as work. Although it might work for companies, things are little different if you’re a self-employed. That doesn’t mean all hope is lost.
Of course I can turn off all notifications on my email or delete the account from email app or … But that’s not practical. On the other hand, I can stop checking my phone or email. Although doable, sometimes I must access my email. It might contain the booking confirmation or the directions to the hut or … you got the idea.
So about last 6-7 months I started doing simple hack. When I’m leaving on vacation I redirect all incoming emails to a separate folder and I don’t check this (or fetch) this folder. That way I can still access my email if I must, but I don’t spot new email or something that would ruin my vacation mode. When I come back I move all the emails back to inbox folder and start working through it (mostly deleting aggressively). It never happened to me that something was so important that it couldn’t wait.
I might seem pretty boring or simple, and it really is. But it works well for me, so unless something changes in my life I’ll keep using it. And I’m sharing it here for you too.
