[pavanred]

Its about 10PM here. I got back from work 3-4 hours ago and my phone just beeped and I could read the email with simply a flick of a finger and saw that it was a work related email though I was having dinner at that time. Now, though I am at home that's running on a thread at the background in my head since then.

This is perhaps just one use case but it's hardly surprising that people now want to go back to way it was before. I still use my smart phone because it makes my life a lot more convenient in many other ways but I definitely understand if someone would find it compelling enough to stop using a smart phone.

But, it does make me think, if I just want to connect to the internet, play music/podcasts, click a pic once a while etc. do I really need a device that's GPS enabled, bluetooth enabled, has NFC, accelorometers, face recognition, multicore processors etc. and costs a fortune ;)

[dmortin]

I have work email notifications off when I don't work. If they don't pay me to be available anytime then of course I won't check my work email after work.

So this is not a reason not to have a smartphone it's only a matter of setting up the phone properly, so notifications reach me only when they should be checked.

[krageon]

Why would you check your email (or even have it beep) during dinner time (or at all when you are off work)? Even if you live alone it should be a big warning flag for an unhealthy work-life balance.

[jacquesm]

There is nothing so urgent that I will interrupt my dinner with family for it. Smartphones do not belong at the diner table anyway.

[rpearl]

don't put work email on your phone

[arrrg]

It depends on the particulars, but my preferred approach is actually to turn all work email notifications off (even unread badges).

I check my mail a couple times a day during work hours, usually when I arrive in the morning, after our standup, after my lunch break, sometime during the afternoon and before I leave (but not right when I want to leave, at least a couple of minutes beforehand).

I always pay close attention to immediately deal with all mail I receive, i.e. complete the task immediately (usually if less than five to ten minutes are required), write a to-do item or (my favorite option) archive the mail. The important part is to get it out of your brain and besides archiving or doing it, the best other way is to write it down.

This obviously only works if real time critical information is not usually sent via email (unexpected, action required immediately and minutes to hours required, depending on the complexity) and if no one expects email to be used for time critical information. Luckily we have policies in place to both ensure that email is used for non time-critical information and other more direct channels (Slack, phone, coming over in person) are used for actual time critical information.

I know that this culture part is often the actual hard one. If people expect you to immediately react to email then there is not much you can do inside the expectations and you probably have to turn notifications on.

Even if you leave notifications on, dealing with email immediately (picking doing it immediately, writing a to-do, archiving it) is still a time-management basic and extremely helpful, but it doesn’t work very well if you have that notification gnawing your nerves somewhere in your brain. Dealing with email immediately actually has to mean dealing with it immediately, i.e. the first time you take notice of it.

(This is a very German perspective, though. My probably biased and also very limited experience in communicating with people in the US was one of general hyperactivity and I had the impression that many treated email sort of like a real time communications channel with weird expectations about response times.)

[mhd]

As for the German perspective: There are several big time companies around here who had to institute regulations so that you can't even access your work emails beyond your office hours (BMW, Telekom). So the employees themselves would check them more and the company had to limit that.

Granted, I don't know how much the "Betriebsrat" was prompting that, but I doubt that people themselves are that much different, despite German Gemütlichkeit.

I found that both IT workers and MBAs are IT/MBA first, nationals second.

[deanclatworthy]

In Finland at least, most employers provide your phone and contract. Of course you can take a separate one but then you’re carrying two phones.

I’ve been dying for gmail and workplace (fb for work) to add a feature so I can stop work related notifications after 17. Having this at iOS level would be great also.

[TomMarius]

Xiaomi phones (not sure about others) allow you to have two separate "spaces". Not sure how it works under the hood, but it's basically like rebooting into another Android instance - even the Google account is not shared, apps are not shared, nothing. You can switch between these spaces from lock screen simply by entering a correct password for the one you want, you can configure what notifications and when can "bubble up" to the primary space, etc. It's an awesome feature.

[KozmoNau7]

My employer provides a work phone and subscription, and I am free to use it privately. I've chosen to keep that phone work-only, so I have bought my own private phone+subscription, and never the twain shall meet.

The work phone gets left in a locker at work along with my work laptop, I refuse to bring it home with me until I have agreed in advance to work from home for some specific task. I know a lot of employers expect their employees to be available at odd hours, but I refuse to participate in that.

I made this decision after suffering under a boss who would call and email at 22:00 and expect results to be ready on his table next morning by 8:00.

Only a very select trusted few of my colleagues have my private phone number, and they will only ever use it in a dire emergency.

[skinnymuch]

Are you not friends with any work colleagues who would want to call or text you as friends?

[KozmoNau7]

No, not really. I do have some "favorite colleagues" who I enjoy working with and chatting about this and that over lunch, but they're colleagues, not friends.

My circle of friends is entirely separate from work, there is no overlap, which is just fine by me. I prefer keeping work and my personal life separate.

[systemtest]

When I start at a company I bring my own phone and own data plan. The dev team gets my phone number and nobody else. No work email on my phone, only the work calendar so I know how early to start the day.

That way you don't have to carry two phones, be tied to a dual-sim phone or have troubles when you leave the company (in case you use the company phone number for private calls too).

[fulafel]

Does accepting the employer's phone mean you are required to have work email on your phone, it's not just for phone calls?

[thebigspacefuck]

I had my employer buy me a separate phone. Work people ask me why I would rather carry two phones but they don't see the flip side when I'm only carrying one phone at home with nothing work related on it.

[lagadu]

Why are you talking your work phone home in the first place? Or at the very least not disabling notifications for that after work hours?