However, if you are constantly checking your email – even outside of regular working hours – you’ll be constantly distracted, not to mention working when you should be focusing on something else, like your child’s soccer game or dinner with your partner. 

Responding to a simple email may seem harmless, but email distraction can lead to lower productivity, higher burnout rates, and poor health. Setting email boundaries at work is incredibly important for productivity and mental health. In fact, setting boundaries may be one of the best employee well-being strategies your team implements.

In this article, we’ll go over seven tips for setting boundaries at work, particularly for your email.

7 Tips for Setting Email Boundaries at Work 

Email apps are no longer the only way to communicate online, and it has quickly become a significant problem when establishing a work-life balance. Most workplaces have email, online chats, social media alerts, meeting reminders, comments, collaboration spaces and more. But with all these notifications cluttering your email and stealing your attention, it’s hard to get your work done and enjoy your time off the clock. 

By setting healthy email boundaries, you can take back your time and be more efficient at work. 

#1: Set Clear Communications Norms for Your Team

Our first email communication tip is to set clear boundaries. Email communication guidelines will look different depending on your industry, team structure, and role, but it’s important to set clear guidelines around email expectations, such as:

• Reasonable email response time
• Team working hours and when to respond to emails
• Standard email signatures
• When to use auto-reply
• Tone of voice
• Type of greeting used
• Any other parameter your team determines should be included in your email guidelines

#2: Unclutter Your Email by Using Filters

Did you know you can organize your email to sort each message as it comes in? You can filter your email to separate communications by certain types of projects, keywords, certain people, and more. Using this feature on Outlook or Gmail, you can prioritize the emails in your inbox and respond to them more organized. Additionally, email filters help you avoid missed emails because they will all be neatly sorted into specific categories. Some  evenfind it helpful to color-code internal versus external emails.

#3: Schedule Time to Respond to Emails

There’s no reason why you should be responding to emails and messages every 10 minutes. If you are one of those people who receive hundreds of emails and feel the urge to respond to each one as it comes, set aside time to respond to emails. For example, you may spend 10 to 20 minutes when you arrive in the morning, after lunch, and at the end of the day to triage your inbox and answer all incoming emails. Time blocking will allow you to focus on your projects fully and not worry about answering emails all day.

#4: Respond to Emails When You’re on the Clock

Unplugging from email is the best email boundary you can set. If you’re one of those people who sends and responds to emails after hours, you may be causing unnecessary stress for yourself and your colleagues. Instead, schedule messages to be sent at a particular time. That way, you can set a specific time for your emails to send so your employees won’t receive emails late at night or early in the morning. Emergencies are, of course, an exception to this rule; everything else can wait until the morning.

#5: Overuse Your Autoresponder

Your email autoresponder can be your best friend if you use it right. You can set your email to automatically reply to any emails you receive when you’re out of the office, on vacation, at a conference, at an appointment, or even in a meeting. The auto-reply feature is not only a great way to maintain your mental well-being, it’s also good email etiquette. Setting your emails to auto-reply lets those who write to you know when they can expect a response.

#6 Don’t Be Afraid to Unsubscribe 

Your inbox can quickly become cluttered with unnecessary emails that divert your attention from important messages. Now is the time to sort through your emails and decide which ones you value and which you no longer need or never signed up for in the first place. If you’re hesitant to unsubscribe, use AI tools to sort and prioritize emails so that the most important messages appear at the top. This way, you can review the less critical emails at your leisure.

#7: Practice What You Preach

To encourage your team to maintain proper email boundaries, lead by example. If you work late and need to send emails, use the “Schedule to Send” feature. This allows you to write an email that will be sent later, which, by default, gives you the flexibility to select the best sending time for the recipient.

For instance, if your readers are early risers, sending the email at 7:00 a.m. ensures it’s one of the first items in their inbox. Conversely, if the recipient is more inclined towards a later start or you know they have a busy morning, scheduling the email for 10:00 a.m. might be more suitable. This approach respects their preferences and fosters a culture of considerate communication.

Why Are Boundaries at Work Important?

Email boundaries are an important part of a healthy work environment. In fact, setting boundaries in the workplace leads to better mental, emotional, and even physical well-being. If you don’t establish reasonable boundaries, you’re more likely to suffer from burnout, poor performance, lower productivity, and even poor health in later life, according to Medical News Today. Unless a real crisis requires immediate action, that email can wait until the following day.

Unprecedented levels of employee burnout — combined with a national mental health crisis and labor shortages in most industries — are prompting many employers to rethink employee well-being as both a responsibility and strategy to remain competitive in hiring and retention.

Leading for Well-Being

Employee well-being is at the heart of an employer’s responsibility to its employees. While each employee may define their personal well-being differently, employers have a responsibility for workplace well-being (job demands, workload, culture) and now employers have a framework for facilitating planning and conversation at a systemic level.

The U.S. Surgeon General’s Framework for Workplace Well-Being articulates five essentials for all employers. Grounded in research on health and human needs, the framework applies to every industry sector, including education.

“A healthy workforce is the foundation for thriving organizations and healthier communities. . . we have an opportunity and the power to make workplaces engines for mental health and well-being… It will be worth it, because the benefits will accrue for workers and organizations alike.”
– U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy

The framework sets forth five essentials that can help us reimagine our workplaces into ‘engines of well-being’ and ensure that our most important resources—our people—are valued and protected. School leaders: This includes you. 

1. 1. 1. Foster a sense of connection (social support and belonging)
      2. Show workers they matter (dignity and meaning)
      3. Promote work-life harmony (autonomy and flexibility)
      4. Support growth (learning and accomplishment)
      5. Protect workers from harm (physical and psychological)

The framework acknowledges that many factors outside the workplace can impact well-being, but adopting this framework provides an opportunity for your school system to define critical priorities that shape the culture of your organization — as a healthy place to work and a place people want to be.

THE FRAMEWORK

Connection and community

We all need to feel like we are part of something larger than ourselves. In education, relationships reign. Fostering collaboration and teamwork, building trusted relationships, and creating a culture of inclusion and belonging, free from discrimination and bias, is the second essential for workplace well-being.

This framework lays out three goals, in addition to DEIA policies, that can “improve work well-being and protect against harmful effects of workplace stress.”

Fostering Supportive Supervisor Relationships

Thoughtfully onboarding and supporting new employees, developing a robust internal communication strategy, and building a culture of trust are small changes that lead to big payoffs. The goal is incremental improvement versus sweeping overhaul.

Fostering Supportive Coworker Relationships and Social Belonging

Promoting teamwork and peer support can increase employees’ sense of social belonging at work. Take a look at the departments within your organization. Do they operate with a sense of protectiveness and a bit of “you don’t understand how hard we have it” attitude, or does each group openly support the organization as a whole? Each person, team and department has unique needs and challenges. Encouraging staff to recognize one another and openly learn from one another can help foster coworker support and positive relationships.

Of course, cultivating a sense of fun, with humor and camaraderie, is important. For school leaders who themselves are bogged down by weighty work, this is an excellent reminder to get out of your office and interact with staff and students in a lighthearted way—at least a few times a week. Reading to an elementary class, popping into a high school elective, or sharing lunch with staff can be a good way to ground yourself in the why you do what you do. And remember to snap photos while you’re out—your school community loves to see their leaders interacting with students.

Creating Conditions for Effective Teamwork

High-quality communication, shared goals, and mutual respect between members are essential to teamwork and workplace well-being. Ensuring that everyone receives important communications, no matter what “rung on the ladder” they occupy. When people understand how their work impacts others and what challenges they collectively and individually face, you provide an opportunity for teams to develop mutual respect. It can be tricky to balance valuable meetings with too many meetings, but it’s important that no team or department works in a total vacuum.

Work-life harmony

As school leaders, you’ve likely spent your career focusing on the needs of students and staff, but now it’s time to put on your own oxygen mask. Creating a culture of work-life harmony means intentionally modeling well-being practices. Ensure that vacation time is honored, digital boundaries are established (resist checking your emails before bed or when you first wake up!), and budget your energy and time just like you might set a financial budget.

We know work doesn’t wait when someone is out of the office. Therefore, it’s necessary to create an emergency sub plan (like this school PR sub plan), so someone else can handle vital tasks when needed. Identify cross-training and role coverage needs to allow rest/recharging at appropriate times.

Set and communicate practices that prioritize work-life harmony. For example, the Hamilton-Wentworth District developed a right-to-disconnect procedure.

A well-being culture starts at the top. In a 2022 study of Minnesota school principals (n=496), less than one-third (31%) prioritized their personal well-being at least weekly during the last year, and 65% reported less effectiveness in their roles. Minnesota school principals were squeezed between trying to meet the needs of their students and employees and the demands of the district, the state, and the general public. Overall, 83% reported lower well-being.

“We know a healthy school environment begins with effective and engaged leadership—free of burnout, emotional exhaustion, and fatigue,” said Janet Swiecichowski, EdD, APR and CEL’s Vice President who conducted the study. “We ask a lot of school principals. They inspire collective efficacy of teachers and set the tone for a positive school climate. They lead by example.

Mattering at work

Mattering at work includes the following key components:

• Providing a living wage
• Engaging workers in workplace decisions
• Building a culture of gratitude and recognition
• Connecting individual work with the organizational mission

Taking time to reflect on the importance and impact of work is good for the soul. Good leaders practice appreciation and gratitude.

Your communications strategies should align with your organizational mission and goals, helping workers see the connection between their tasks and the school system’s purpose and mission as a whole. This may look like recognizing individuals, teams, and departments for their work (beyond National Bus Drivers Day), elevating the importance of each position within the district and ensuring that all new hires understand how their role supports your mission. Workplace engagement is a significant driver of educator retention.

“Social science experts are clear about the importance of empathy,” said Janet Swiecichowski. “Everyone in the workforce wants to feel appreciated, seen and valued. There’s never been a better time to tell the stories that spotlight your teachers and staff as the community heroes they are.”

Opportunity for growth

You may already have robust growth opportunities for educators, including training, education and mentoring opportunities. Are there opportunities for other roles within your organization? Opportunities can include:

• Conference registration and travel
• Training or boot camps
• Certifications and credentials
• Online subscriptions
• Reimbursements for books and guides
• Tuition assistance
• New software/office tools

Mentorship and growth opportunities are key to enticing younger generations into your workforce. New hires want a sense of connection to your organization and mission. Understanding your new hires’ motivations, skills, and passions can ensure you’re pairing the right person with the right job. Ensure equitable pathways for advancement by making opportunities available and accessible to every worker.

Adopting the Framework

To identify your priorities within the framework, you can take several preliminary steps (and most likely, you’ve already done much of this work):

Assess the well-being needs of your employees on a systemic level. This may include a staff survey to identify engagement, burnout or workplace stressors. Ask employees in mid-year checks what is working and what is not. What are the greatest workplace stressors? What is fueling energy and motivation, and what is depleting it? Both Gallup’s Q12 and Mind Garden’s MBI have respected survey instruments. Develop baseline metrics to measure your well-being strategies over time (the problem has developed over time and will take time to change.)

Using pulse surveys, asking a few questions can provide a good baseline:
From the MBI-2: “I feel burned out,” and “I have become more callous toward people since I started this job,” have high reliability for indicating burnout.  Two questions validated to assess meaning and fulfillment are: What percent of your time at work did you enjoy your job? What percent of the time do you feel your efforts are making a positive difference for students?

Develop and implement policies and practices that support well-being. Reduce the number of initiatives, programs and new adoptions that are overloading the system and its people. Dr. Doug Reeves advocates for explicitly retiring initiatives and engaging employees in creating a What to Stop Doing list.

Engage staff in the process. It may be counter-intuitive to ask staff to help redesign their work or develop workplace well-being practices, but involving employees in decisions that affect their work is foundational to employee engagement and effectiveness. A school’s well-being needs can be complex, and involving staff can ensure you’re targeting resources in the most effective areas. Also look for community partners in the medical and mental health arena who can bring expertise into your schools through on-site therapy sessions, guided classes, coaching or professional development.

Monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of your strategies. Set methods to collect data regularly and identify areas of improvement.

Protection from harm

Based on the human needs for safety and security, “protecting all workers from physical and non-physical harm, including injury, illness, discrimination, bullying, and harassment.”

On a basic level, this includes access to comprehensive healthcare coverage and mental health services and policies that allow for time off for mental health care.

Safety includes continued efforts to reduce violence, promote positive student behavior, and promote equity, inclusion and accessibility.

It may also mean rethinking some long-standing bad habits: inadequate time for bathroom breaks, working and responding to emails late at night, and working through lunch.

Sleep is basic to human functioning. Inadequate rest increases the likelihood of on-the-job mistakes, injuries and interpersonal conflict. Sleep deprivation also decreases leadership effectiveness in decision-making, relationship-building and interpersonal effectiveness.  Long work hours “have also been shown to raise workers’ risk for exhaustion, anxiety, and depression.” Let’s stop praising people for being available 24/7 or “constantly going above and beyond.”

“There is a tendency for people to view burnout as a personal mental health issue, but it’s the workplace and chronic job stressors that are the sources of burnout.”
-Dr. Christina Maslach

Public education has an employee recruitment and retention problem. At the same time, other industries are in the midst of an evolution in workplace well-being.

By adopting this framework for workplace well-being, you can make meaningful progress in supporting (and keeping!) the people in your schools. “It’s never about me; it’s always about us,” said Cindy Leines, CEL founder and CEO. “Success isn’t climbing over others to get to the top; it’s lifting each other up so that we all succeed.”

Successful workplaces depend on creating healthy, human-centered environments. Forward-thinking leaders will be wise to engage employees in rethinking the future of work and employee experience if they want to attract and retain a quality workforce.

Try out six daily exercises from Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage. They are proven to improve mood and increase mental health during uncertain times. Because we each have a choice in how we show up each day, being intentional about mindfulness, positive psychology, and well-being can increase employee engagement and productivity.

According to an interview with Achor in Forbes, “Happiness is not the belief that everything is great; happiness is the belief that change is possible. In Before Happiness, Achor defines happiness as “the joy one feels striving for one’s potential.” Small mental victories, especially during rough times, are a matter of intentionality.

Achor explores a different way of thinking and creating happiness. Rebuking traditional thinking that success or accomplishment creates happiness, he flips the narrative. He posits that happiness drives performance. If we exercise our minds, we can become more positive. It turns out that a positive mindset makes us happier and more successful.

1. Gratitude Exercises

Write down three things you are grateful for over the last 24 hours. They don’t have to be profound. It could be a really good cup of coffee, the warmth of a sunny day, or collaboration with a colleague. The focus of this exercise is to look for the good. During hard times, look for the helpers.

2. The Daily Happiness Doubler

Reflect on one positive experience from the past 24 hours, and spend two minutes writing down every detail about that experience. As you remember it, your brain labels it as meaningful and deepens the imprint. Doing so creates a double dose of the experience and a double dose of daily happiness.

3. The Fun Fifteen

Every day, do 15 minutes of fun cardio activity, like dancing, gardening, or walking the dog. The effects of daily cardio can be as effective as taking an antidepressant.

4. Meditation

Take two minutes to stop whatever you’re doing and concentrate on breathing. This is especially effective before starting a project, meeting, or important conversation. Even a short, mindful break can result in a calmer, happier you.

5. Conscious Act of Kindness

At the start or end of every day, send a short email or text praising someone you know. Our brains become addicted to feeling good by making others feel good. This habit is especially helpful for strengthening relationships and enhancing teamwork.

6. Deepen Social Connections

Spend time with family and friends. Social connections are among the best predictors of success, health, and even life expectancy. Whether it’s a larger, high-energy crowd or a small circle of friends, the adage ‘people who need people are the luckiest people in the world’ is true.

Bonus tip: Stay hydrated. Start your morning with two big glasses of water to hydrate and refresh your brain. Stay hydrated throughout the day to promote cognition and well-being.

Add these simple daily exercises to your daily routine. Challenge yourself and share with your friends and family. Spread health and happiness!

If you enjoyed these 6 daily happiness exercises, we recommend reading Shawn Achor’s The Happiness Advantage or his latest book, Big Potential.