It’s Saturday morning and your boss emails you a question that can wait until Monday.
asserted
that → ’ → Monday
What do you do?
asserted
you → do → What
If you’re like me, you read the message while walking out of your yoga class and respond before lunch.
asserted
you → ’re → lunch
This work culture makes the U.S. an outlier among high-income economies.
asserted
U.S. → make → economies
Since 2017, countries including France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Australia, Slovakia, Greece, and Argentina have legislated some form of a right to disconnect.
asserted
countries → include → right
The European Union is working on a policy that could take effect as soon as 2028.
uncertain
that → work → 2028
In Australia, employees have the right not to read or respond to employers outside of work hours.
asserted
employees → have → hours
In Portugal, mid-size employers risk fines of over $10,000 for contacting employees when they’re off the clock.
asserted
they → risk → clock
As we think about the employment landscape in the U.S. this Labor Day, we should consider a similar approach that protects the right of employees to not work when they’re not officially working.
asserted
they → think → employees
This could solve a lot of problems for families and communities while actually improving job performance.
uncertain
This → solve → performance
Since the pandemic, the boundaries between work and home have all but collapsed.
asserted
boundaries → collapse → work
With many workers still doing a lot of remote work, many of us send our first email early in the morning and our last late at night, creating what Microsoft calls the “infinite workday.”
asserted
Microsoft → do → what
We squeeze in a load of laundry, parent-teacher conference, and family dinner somewhere in between.
asserted
We → squeeze → between
Being pulled in so many directions at the same time is awful for our health and the quality of our work, for a simple reason: The human brain can’t multitask.
asserted
brain → pull → reason
“Each time we are exposed to a new stimulus and engage in the sequential process of disconnecting and reallocating our attention, we are expending valuable metabolic energy,” University of California, Santa Barbara technology management professor Paul Leonardi writes in Digital Exhaustion: Simple Rules for Reclaiming Your Life.
asserted
Leonardi → expose → Life
We lose focus and become easily distracted.
asserted
We → lose → focus
We can’t get things done as quickly or as easily as we should be able to, and often quality suffers.
asserted
quality → get → ?
Humans just didn’t evolve to keep switching between tasks as quickly and regularly as we do today, Leonardi warns.
asserted
Leonardi → evolve → tasks
This explains why so many of us are exhausted and burned out.
asserted
many → explain → us
It also explains why we spend so much time working: We aren’t as efficient as we could be.
uncertain
we → explain → time
When I don’t work on the weekend, I unquestionably show up as a better employee on Monday morning.
asserted
I → work → morning
That’s because spending time with friends and family, exercising, getting outdoors, and volunteering in my community leave me refreshed and energized.
asserted
spending → ’ → me
What’s more, when I get my kids’ permission slips filled out and the fruit and veggies chopped on the weekend, thoughts of unfinished business aren’t floating through my head while I’m working.
asserted
I → ’ → head
That means I can achieve a state of what the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi famously termed “flow,” getting completely absorbed in my work and reaching peak performance.
asserted
Csikszentmihalyi → mean → performance
Allowing workers to disconnect would therefore make them better employees.
asserted
them → allow → ?
It could also solve several public policy problems.
uncertain
It → solve → problems
Our children need present caregivers.
asserted
children → need → caregivers
It only takes seconds for a child to fall or drown while we’re distracted by a manager’s latest missive.
asserted
we → take → missive
When parents spend more time on screens, their children also develop poorer language skills.
asserted
children → spend → skills
And, of course, children are unlikely to open up about their problems while we’re distracted on our phones.
asserted
we → open → phones
Plus, if workers disconnected during their off-hours, they’d also have more time to nurture the offline connections that our country desperately needs.
asserted
country → disconnect → that
I would agree that we’re experiencing what psychologist Marisa Franco calls a “friendship famine.”
asserted
Franco → agree → what
Since 1990, the percentage of American adults who say they have no close friends has quadrupled, according to last year’s American Perspectives Survey.
uncertain
they → say → Survey
The quality of our friendships and social connections is one of the strongest predictors of our health, happiness, and how long we’ll live, according to the Harvard Study of Adult Development.
uncertain
we → live → Development
It’s more important than things like our cholesterol, genes, and salaries.
asserted
It → ’ → cholesterol
Of course, as Americans know one another less, we help one another less.
asserted
we → know → one
This can explain why volunteerism has also been declining.
asserted
volunteerism → explain → ?
That’s particularly sad because banding together has long been a central part of our national character, as Alexis de Tocqueville famously wrote in Democracy in America.
asserted
Tocqueville → ’ → America
It’s especially important in a country like ours where people can’t rely on a strong social safety net when they hit hard times.
asserted
they → ’ → times
Labor Day is an obvious prompt for U.S. lawmakers to consider a right to disconnect.
asserted
lawmakers → consider → right
…and 15 more, not listed.
