The Emails Can Wait

The Emails Can Wait

I have just come back from two weeks away. And for the first time in more years than I can honestly count, I hardly checked my emails.

Not a sneaky look before breakfast. Not “just checking nothing urgent came in.” Nothing.

I used to tell myself that keeping half an eye on things while I was away was the responsible thing to do. That I would come back to less chaos if I stayed a little bit connected. That it made me feel calmer, more in control, more on top of things.

It doesn’t. It never did.

This time, I switched off properly and I feel a hundred and ten per cent better for it.

I came home lighter. Clearer. Genuinely rested in a way I don’t think I have been for a very long time. And the business? It was fine. Better than fine, actually. My team had handled everything I would have wanted to be pulled into and quite a lot I wouldn’t have thought to.

Ridiculously so, this was not easy for me.

What it actually taught me

This was never really about email. It was about trust.

Trust in my team and trust in myself, that the things I have put in place behind the scenes actually work.

For a long time, I don’t think I believed that was possible. I think, if I am honest, some part of me needed to be needed. Needed to be copied in. Needed to be the one who knew what was going on, because if I didn’t, what did that say about how essential I was?

This holiday taught me the opposite. The business’s don’t need me checking in from a sun lounger to survive. It needs me rested enough to lead it properly when I am back.

Sound familiar?

I know I am not the only one who does this. HiBob’s most recent workplace survey found that half of UK workers check work messages during their holiday, and more than a quarter believe that failing to respond outside working hours would actually damage their career. We have built entire working cultures around the fear of being unreachable.

Separately, a Vista Health survey this summer found the average UK worker still has around seven days of paid holiday sitting unused at the end of the year, and roughly one in seven say it is because they are worried about the work piling up while they are gone. Not that they don’t want the time off. That they don’t trust it will be safe to take.

That is not dedication. That is a system, or a mindset, that has not been built to let you step away.

And if you run your own business

I know what some of you are thinking, because I used to think it too. “That’s fine for people with a big team behind them. I run my own business. I genuinely cannot switch off.”

I want to push back on that.

Yes. You absolutely can.

It might mean looking honestly at what you have put in place, or not put in place, to let that happen. It might mean a slightly harder conversation with yourself about what you are actually protecting by staying switched on. But it is possible. I am proof of that, and I promise you, I am not naturally wired to let go easily.

The question I would love to ask you

When was the last time you took a real break? No laptop open “just in case.” No quick scroll through your inbox before bed. An actual, full stop.

What is stopping you from doing it again?

I would love to know what got in the way for you, and what it would take to change it.

Zoe Sinclair