Edel Coffey: Did you check your work emails over Christmas? You could suffer from FOSO

Edel Coffey: ‘I’ve turned every moment into an opportunity to be online, alert, working’

Did you return to work last week to an inbox full of unread emails that had accumulated over the Christmas break? Or did you, like me, check your emails every day over the holiday period, despite having your ‘out of office’ turned on? 

I told myself, if I just check in on my emails briefly every day or two, I’ll have a sense of what is awaiting me on my return to work. I’ll be on top of things. I’ll already know what emails need to be prioritised and what can wait, or be deleted. If there were things I could answer quickly or get off my plate, I did that, still careful not to spend more than a few minutes on my emails. I was, after all, on holidays. But I told myself I was doing this for me. The return to work would be easier this way. I didn’t dare admit to myself that by constantly checking in, even for a couple of minutes a day, I was never properly checking out.

Many of us, it seems, find it difficult to switch off, to disengage from our emails and technology, and by extension our work. Fear of switching off, or Foso, is an actual thing. A recent survey revealed that more than a third of people found it difficult to switch off from their technology while on holidays, and 73% worried about missing messages if they could not check their phones.

I like to think that I have good phone hygiene but when I analyse the situation factually, I look at my phone last thing before bed and first thing when I wake up. My daily averages range from two to four hours spent on my phone. I used to find getting a facial or my hair done relaxing things to do, a time of enforced calm where I just had to sit and wait for the process to be finished. Sometimes I might even fall asleep during these treatments. 

Now, these procedures feel like the mental equivalent of fingers drumming on a table. I am ashamed to say I have checked emails while my hair is being washed in a basin; I have impatiently waited for an LED light mask to be lifted off my face so I could check the unimportant email that buzzed on my phone halfway through the treatment (I felt the buzz because, of course, the phone was in my hand).

Instead of taking these opportunities to relax and switch off, I’ve turned every moment into an opportunity to be online, alert, working.

The pandemic didn’t help. It established a new norm of being constantly online, constantly poised (and often expected) to respond immediately to any WhatsApp chat, text, email query, or FaceTime or zoom call. Is it any wonder we have Foso?

Productivity, even outside of work, is a constant drumbeat. I see it in my own life. After my professional working day is done, and all domestic and family-related duties are under control, I might turn on the TV to relax. But ten minutes in, I’ll think about the basket of ironing that I could be tackling whilst watching TV instead of ‘wasting time’ relaxing. It’s come to the point where taking any sort of time out or unadulterated break — one that doesn’t double-up as a napkin-folding or laundry session — is almost taboo. The irony is that taking breaks, giving our minds time to switch off, relax, recover, is the thing that makes us more productive, motivated, creative, and efficient in our lives and our work.

As I went on a deep dive about Foso (still clearly not switching off), I came across an interview on The Ezra Klein Show with Gloria Mark, a University of California professor and author of a book called Attention Span. Mark compared how we treat our minds and how we treat our bodies. People who weight train will have strictly enforced rest and recovery periods, they are disciplined about how much strain they will put on their bodies before they enforce a break. They will give their bodies the right foods and supplements for optimal performance. With our minds, however, we will push and push and push to the point of burnout, because in a culture that prizes productivity and always being on, switching off and taking a break, is the biggest crime you could commit.

Switching off is essential for our brain functioning, not to mention our mental health and creativity. Agatha Christie said: “The best time for planning a book is when you’re doing the dishes.” We’ve all had an ‘Aha!’ moment while washing the windows or in downward-facing dog pose or pulling weeds out of the ground because the fact is, when we allow our brains to switch off, they respond with such generosity by replenishing themselves. When we burn our brain muscle, we need rest and recovery days too, just like any other muscle. It’s worth reminding ourselves that there is a simple solution. When we are tired, when our attention lapses, when we reach overload or burnout, the answer is always the same simple one — switch off and take a break. You’ll be more productive for it.