How muting work chats & scheduling messages after hours helps with work-life harmony

Ever since I started working, I’ve always been someone who values having balance in my life.

But the truth is, it’s wayyyy easier said than done. I’ve definitely felt burnt out and overwhelmed, and I’ve realised that it usually happens at periods when I’ve been unable to effectively separate my personal life from my work life in a way that’s restful and fulfilling to me.

However, I feel that creating this separation is extremely important, both for my own well-being as well as for my ability to produce work that I’m proud of. Thus, finding ways to achieve this harmony between the different parts of my life is a priority for me.

So, when I was asked to spend a week putting into practice some of the suggestions by Work-Life Ambassadors as recommended here, I was more than happy to try them out.

What are Work-Life Ambassadors, you may ask? They are business leaders, HR practitioners and working individuals who work with the Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP) to raise awareness about the value of work-life harmony.

Here’s what I learned over the course of the week:

Setting boundaries and being flexible at the same time

One topic that the Work-Life Ambassadors stressed was the importance of setting clear boundaries and expectations.

When I first started this job in 2019, I really struggled with understanding how to have any sort of harmony between my work and my life.

My wishful thinking was for a hard boundary between the two — to never have to think about or tend to work-related things outside of office hours — but I soon realised this was quite difficult, given the nature of a writer’s work.

After all, time-sensitive developments can happen at any time.

At first, I felt overwhelmed because I felt like I had to always be ready for a last-minute change or an urgent task. This led to me feeling burnt out often.

Over time, I managed to find ways to set and maintain my own boundaries while also staying flexible to ensure I could meet the requirements of my job.

For example, our work chats are often still quite active at night, with discussions about the latest news stories and happenings. When I first noticed this, the constant pinging made me quite anxious, as I felt that I had to be constantly “on” and plugged into work-related things.

Thanks to guidance from some more experienced colleagues and my supervisors, though, I realised that keeping up with the chat after work hours wasn’t actually an expectation, but was something I had put upon myself.

Now, my solution is that at the end of each work day, I mute my most active work chats and only unmute them when I start my workday the next morning.

However, if there are urgent issues that come up, my colleagues are able to contact me by directly messaging or calling me.

This has helped a lot with my stress levels and allowed me to focus my full energy on other aspects of my life, like enjoying time with loved ones and having much-needed “me-time” .

And because I feel more rested and balanced, when something urgent comes up and I need to take a few minutes to address it outside of work hours, I am totally fine with doing so.

For example, after work on Monday, I ordered some Mexican food and watched a couple episodes of the new season of Bridgerton.

I used the Do Not Disturb function on my laptop so that I could fully immerse myself in the dramatic happenings of the Bridgertons and the Sharmas, without getting distracted by non-urgent work messages.

After dinner, however, I saw from my notifications that I had received some relatively urgent emails, so I switched back into work mode for a few minutes.

With that out of the way, I returned to enjoying my evening and put aside work until the next day.

Mutual understanding

Another crucial element of effectively separating work and personal life, according to the Work-Life Ambassadors, is to have a mutual understanding between employers and employees — and, I would argue, among employees as well.

In the same way that I appreciate a break from after-hour work texts, I try my best to practise what I preach by not texting after hours.

On Monday night around 11pm, I suddenly thought of something I needed to communicate to a colleague.

It would’ve been easy to just type up the message and send it over, but I know how disruptive and annoying it can be to receive a text about work — even, or maybe especially, if it isn’t urgent — outside of work hours, much less at night.

So, I took the extra step of scheduling the message to be sent the next morning instead. This way, I knew I wouldn’t forget to communicate the information, and I also wouldn’t be disrupting my colleague’s night.

In the same way, I also appreciate when my colleagues demonstrate thoughtfulness and care about not sending non-urgent messages after office hours.

I was very heartened when our management discussed this issue last year and encouraged us to all be mindful about sending messages outside of work hours.

The Alliance for Action on Work-Life Harmony also has a helpful sample policy for companies to reference when developing their own after-hours communication policies.

Flexibility

As some Work-Life Ambassadors shared, many employees expect a certain level of flexibility in their work in this day and age.

Employers thus need to tailor their practices and take into account their employees’ needs, together with the nature of their business operations.

Although it was announced in April that all employees can now return to the workplace, I’m glad that we haven’t been compelled to work from the office just for the sake of it.

In fact, the tripartite partners (Singapore National Employers Federation, National Trades Union Congress, and the Ministry of Manpower) have called on employers to continue offering flexible work arrangements as a permanent feature of the workplace.

Currently, we only need to head into the office once a week on an assigned day. As much as I really enjoy going to the office and seeing the friendly faces of my colleagues, I also appreciate the flexibility of being able to work from home and deciding which other days I’d like to return to the office.

On Tuesday, for example, I went to the office as it was my assigned day. I planned to return on Wednesday as well, but decided I could use a bit more rest and decided to work from home, since I could save some time from the commute.

If we were required to go to the office every single day, I know I’d feel a lot more burnt out and sian about the amount of time spent commuting, as well as the lack of flexibility, so I’m grateful that our management is being mindful of our well-being and needs.

Listening to employees’ needs

It’s also important that employers have regular and open communication with their employees to ensure that flexible work arrangements are sustainable and a win-win for both parties. For me, I was able to benefit from the fruits of this open communication this week.

I was assigned to be part of the “duty” team on Saturday, to help cover the important news over the weekend.

Yup, that means I had to work six days that week.

Previously, this was something I felt could be quite tiring, as I value having two days on the weekend to rest and recharge.

To compensate for needing to work on the weekend, our bosses implemented a system, where we are given time off either the day before or the day after our duty day.

It’s nice to know that our bosses take our feedback seriously and care about our well-being.

So instead of having to work a full five days plus my whole Saturday, I was able to knock off work early on Friday afternoon and enjoy my evening, so that I’d be fully recharged and ready to roll on Saturday morning.

I also got another half day of leave which I can take anytime in the next six months, which I look forward to utilising.

Achieving work-life harmony is a combined effort

The one week I spent implementing the suggestions from Work-Life Ambassadors helped me understand the role of both employees and employers in creating work-life harmony.

On an employee’s side of things, setting boundaries and being respectful of other people’s boundaries are super important steps for creating a healthy working culture.

And for employers, it’s crucial to listen to employee’s needs and find ways to provide for flexible arrangements on a more systemic level.

I am more passionate than ever about the importance of setting reasonable boundaries that allow for rest and personal enjoyment, while also keeping in mind the need for flexibility in certain situations.

Find out more about work-life harmony on the TAFEP website here.

This sponsored article is brought to you by the Ministry of Manpower.

Top image by Firmbee.com on Unsplash.