How to Conquer Nonstop Notifications at Work | Christine vs Work

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0:56Christine:Hey, friends. Today's topic is super personal. I, oh, sorry about that. Anyway, so this episode is,

1:07so you want, leave me alone.

1:16Christine:Notifications at work have gotten so out of control. Like after a while, it is extremely overwhelming. I'm talking email, I'm talking Slack, DMs, whichever way you are pingable. So message overload is nothing new, but it's only gotten worse with the rise of virtual work that relies on this type of communication. So for me, you either respond to everything and feel destroyed at the end of the day, or you reply to some but feel super guilty about the rest. Shame. So I found some things that have helped me, which I'll share in this video, but I still have questions. How do you avoid getting burned out by work messages?

1:54Christine:What are things I can do to set boundaries? and ultimately, how do I create a healthier relationship with my inbox? If you're looking for tips on how to manage messages at work without feeling bedraggled every day, we're going to go through some practical techniques you can do to set healthy expectations and boundaries.

2:20We get notifications and pings and, you know, something is unread. It starts to drive us crazy. This notion of FOMO and, you know, just everything that was happening. I think I was maybe experiencing it before many people and felt the need to to write about it. And and I suppose to serve as a bit of a cautionary tale.

2:42Christine:That's Daniel Sieberg. He's the director of innovation marketing at Moody's Corporation, co-founder of Good Trust and has deep roots in tech and science journalism. He's also the author of The Digital Diet, which was published in 2011, but even back then dealt with tech addiction and message overload. At the time, Christine, I think it was driven by almost an intervention that was happening around me. People were concerned about the way that I was, I would say, mismanaging my relationship with technology. And so I started by writing a blog. It's definitely a self-help experience. Say you get a message from work.

3:23Christine:The urge kicks in to respond immediately. Like the clock is ticking. You don't want to leave them hanging. But how much of that urgency is just in your head? Daniel recommends flipping the script and mentally recalibrating the sender's expectations. I work to message people or email them or ping them somehow. I think to myself, am I Am I expecting that they respond to me right away? No. Generally speaking, my assumption is they're busy, they're doing something, they'll get back to me when they can, and I try not to take it personally. So flip that logic around back to you. If someone has sent you a message, they're off to the next thing.

4:04Christine:Get back to them when you reasonably can, but the default doesn't have to be literally ASAP. Give yourself the grace of time. This might seem obvious, But if you haven't already explored the pause and focus features of your messaging devices and software, now might be the time. Pause notifications within Slack pretty easily, although I'm still struck by how many people don't haven't seen that. Make it clear in a respectful way that you are unavailable. You can even set your status like I'm busy in a meeting, doing deep work, or even filming a little video. if you feel the need to explain why you're not responding.

4:43At the end of the day, you're protecting your time. You have some control over that. And if that's really what you need, then set it without judgment, without guilt, without thinking, you know, I'm not taking care of it. When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications, and more. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast.

5:18That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web. like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required, compatibility and availability varies 18+.

5:51...of everything else, because for you, that's what's important.

5:57Christine:So far, we've covered some tips on how to manage the message overload, but ultimately you want to do as much as you can to stop it at the source. So here's how to set boundaries, ideally when you're early in a new role. It can involve things like sitting down with your manager or your boss and just setting the right expectations, even asking them some questions. You know, when should I think of you as available or not available? Maybe open it that way to kind of learn a little bit about the demands on their time. Hopefully that creates a natural segue for you to share your time commitments and things that'll affect your work schedule.

6:35Christine:Caring for a family member, recurring appointments, whatever. Be clear, be as honest as you are comfortable, and start to build that trust and empathy in your working relationship. It's not easy to have those conversations sometimes. It might feel like you're, you know, not the person who's always available and I can do anything and don't worry if the meeting's late and all the rest of it. But I think the more that you can kind of establish that in the beginning, the more respect you're going to get from your boss and from your peers. They're going to say, hey, you have a life. Like, we get it.

7:08And so do I. And we should all just admit that and find the best ways to do the best work. Ooh, out of office.

7:19Christine:So in addition to letting people know your day-to-day work schedule, it is absolutely crucial to set expectations when you're taking time off because vacation should be vacation. An example might be to set up an out-of-office notification that says, not only am I out of the office for the next week, but I won't be checking my email when I get back. And if you want to hear from me about whatever it is that's important to you during this week. I'm going to need you to email me again on this day when I'm back in the office and then I will read it. Wait, what? You can do that? You can ignore or delete any messages that come your way when you're out?

8:01Christine:Can I say I will delete your message? Is that rude? Well, and this is where I think it walks a fine line but feeling too sort of aggro and aggressive and almost, you know, dismissive of the importance of whatever they're sending you. You're saying to them, hey look I'm gonna have this amazing vacation this week. I hope you understand that I just really need this time. When I come back though, can't wait to hear from you. All I'm asking is you maybe just make a calendar notification and remember to send this to me you know on this day. That's all right just something fairly basic like that. If you try this technique please comment.

8:36Christine:I am so fascinated. I mean this this technique personally terrifies me but I am tempted by this wipe clean method of, you know, not being locked in email jail the first day you get back to vacation. Plus, accountability is put right back where it belongs. On the sender. Do you have any advice for just like the psychological challenge of managing an overflowing inbox? Go for a walk. Just let them go? Just like drop everything and walk away. I mean, no, I mean, in a way, yes. Is this scary to anyone else? I mean, I have this fear deep down that something horrible will happen if I don't respond to everyone.

9:27Christine:But Daniel, he's worked in startup land to big corporations and everything in between. And he brings a measured perspective. And I would say that one of the things that I've experienced is that very rarely are people demoted and certainly not fired because they haven't responded to something immediately. That is something that we have all put on ourselves in many ways. We imagine that the person on the other end has. When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications and more.

10:04Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks.

10:38Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18+. It's this sense of just like waiting for the person to respond and come on, right? And I think the reality is those people are also busy and distracted and doing other things. But if it's not urgent, you know, thinking through how to prioritize everything, rather than this kind of like, I have to take care of every single thing as it comes at me.

11:08Christine:If everyone is super stressed out and frantically responding at all hours, the frenzy just gets worse and worse. And to break this bad cycle, you have to lead by example. Be thoughtful in your response. Write something that doesn't look slapdash. Introduce calm back into the process. You can be the change. You can be the other emailer you want to be. OK, we learned a lot of great things from Daniel. These are all excellent tips, especially the one about setting boundaries early. These are things I wish I would have known when I was just starting out. We've all learned some tricks along the way, and I'm really happy to share some of mine.

11:48Christine:So full disclosure, these are just things that I use. I don't have a relationship with them. This is not an ad, blah, blah, blah. But I just thought it'd be helpful. Number one thing I can recommend is called Inbox Pause. So it kind of hooks up to whatever email client, Gmail, Outlook, whatever. And so if you're going on vacation or leave, you basically hit this button that hits Pause, and then any emails that come your way are actually shuttled to some secret, far away folder. You won't even see it. Your inbox will continue to say zero new messages for as long as you're paused. And then when you return or when you're ready, you just unpause and then all of those emails will magically flood back in and then you can deal with them the day you're back.

12:32Christine:It's great. There's no peeking, no temptations. It's like silence.

12:40Christine:Okay, I'm almost afraid to confess this, but hey, I use a MacBook and I have the do not disturb setting on all the time. So what does that mean? I don't get weird notifications. I don't get pop-ups, I don't get dings, email, slacks, whatever. So I have to manually go into these things to check on what's new. And of course, I'm like checking them all the time. Don't get me wrong. I'm not that weird. But if I have no notifications, do not disturb. I'm just like at peace. I feel in control. And also a great pro tip is that you will have zero risk of like embarrassing things showing up on your screen when you are presenting to an entire room of your coworkers.

13:22Christine:So sending and scheduling messages later. This is so easy and so simple. And pretty much every messaging service does this. It's just a matter of choosing to do this. So I love it because one, you kind of set and respect other people's boundaries and hopefully they feel respected and they'll do the same for you. So if you're late at night or working off hours, whatever, and you don't want to forget it, you can just schedule it. You can do this with email. You can do this with Slack. In fact, you can even do it for text messages, which changed my life when I learned about it. I know this sounds like a lot of work, but trust me, it's worth it.

13:57Sometimes it takes feeling so overwhelmed that you just have to do something about it. On the other hand, if we're all going to walk the walk a little bit in terms of how we best manage our technology, some of it is getting ahead of that feeling. And rather than waiting until burnout or exhaustion and just feeling like this is all happening too much too fast. Taking advantage of all of these ways to set some limits and some boundaries and say to yourself, I'm just going to implement these few things and see how... Have you heard that McDonald's spicy chicken McNuggets made with spicy tempura and a blend of aged cayenne are back?

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