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October 11, 2012 By Kristina

Stepping Away.

This last Saturday night I found myself returning an email to a client at 10:45 at night. I sent my response, we watched the movie we rented and while Ryan let the dogs out for the last time for the evening – I clicked my icon and my design client had returned my email and I clicked “reply”.

Before I got too many sentences in, I stopped and thought to myself, 

“What the hell am I doing? It’s 12:45 am and I’m responding to an email?? What is wrong with me? There is nothing that pertinent that I need to respond right now.”
And although I felt like I was slacking I closed out of my mail app, and proceeded to bed.

Sunday morning I woke up and checked my emails like I do every morning, and that email and another I had received stared at me making me feel guilty that I they were missing a response. I thought about the fact that I have sent many emails and had to wait for a response for 24-72 hours regularly. And although I’m a stickler about emails and making sure I give an unbelievably fast response time,
I gave myself permission to take the entire day off.

No emails, no Twitter.

I’m a habitual “email icon clicker” and having unread messages on my screen bugs me – so even clicking and reading them I decided I was going to make it all wait until Monday.
It was going to be just fine, the world would still go ’round.

I don’t work on actual work Sundays, and usually the most I do on Saturdays is Tweet out about the link-up for small business and return emails – but I usually don’t work on any other tangible work or blog stuff unless Ryan is working or has something else going on.

So I decided its my goal to make myself realize emails can be received and go unanswered for more than a couple hours, it OK to step away for the weekend like most businesses do – to take a break; because the truth is emails are still work at the end of the day, and responding the next day is OK. It doesn’t make me any less of a person or business woman, but it makes me a better wife and will make me a better mother to set those perimeters now while I can soak up the last weekends of quiet moments with Ryan, just the two of us because ultimately that’s where my priorities should lie – with my husband, while he is home the two days a week he is. He deserves that much. And once baby A arrives – those two are going to hold the top spots on my priority list.

So, it’s better that right now I learned to teach myself that it’s OK to step away, because it is.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: emails, stepping away, twitter, work

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Comments

  1. AvatarBossy Betty says

    October 11, 2012 at 1:20 pm

    Yep! Amazing how much importance we place on our participation in e-mail, but the truth is the world goes one without us. Good for you for realizing what’s important!

  2. AvatarCody says

    October 11, 2012 at 2:21 pm

    Good post. I am struggling with this myself! I feel like I have to answer people as soon as I see their messages, but focusing on this is making me fall behind in my work. I am definitely trying to ration my time for replying to emails and messages to just a short block in the morning, but sometimes it is really hard to do that!

  3. AvatarKaty Vannicola says

    October 11, 2012 at 8:37 pm

    So true! I miss those quiet moments with my husband and now that Reba is here, well, those days are far and few between, which if fine because she is our pride and joy:) Enjoy and love every minute of every day:) Love ya all (still;)

  4. AvatarKim Marie says

    October 13, 2012 at 11:03 pm

    This was a great post Kristina. Sometimes you just have to “step away” and live your life outside of work, blogging, e-mails (regardless if they are work related), etc, etc…

    I’ve only realized recently how important that is…to step away.

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Hi, I'm Kristina and I’m so glad that you are here.
I'm a crunchy, homeschooling mama of 3 that is on a mission to live an intentional life. I don’t want to just survive - I want to thrive. Join me as I share in my journey of intentional living, my passions, my family, my heart, natural living, and the things I’m loving. Welcome. Learn more >



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