Why midnight emails are unsustainable

We’ve all seen it. That late-night email. A Slack message at an ungodly hour. The “just circling back” ping… at 3 AM. Some wear it as a badge of honour - proof of their relentless work ethic. But here’s the thing: Constant availability isn’t a leadership trait. It’s a boundary problem. When leaders send emails at odd hours, even with a “no rush” disclaimer, it subtly creates pressure. It sets the tone for a culture where work bleeds into life, where rest is optional, and burnout is inevitable. Respect isn’t just about words - it’s about actions. • Schedule emails for working hours. • Normalise real downtime. • Show that balance is valued, not just preached. Because great teams don’t thrive on exhaustion. They thrive on clarity, boundaries, and respect.

Employees don’t just leave jobs. They get tired of the constant messages after work. I know teams where the work itself isn’t the problem. The problem is the constant ping. 11:30 PM. On a Sunday. During someone’s family dinner. Even on a vacation they saved for months. Not for emergencies. Not for client escalations. Just for “status updates” that could easily wait until morning. The result? People stop dreading deadlines. They start dreading the notification sound. Here’s the uncomfortable truth: A late-night message once in a while is fine. But when it becomes a pattern, it turns toxic. It steals rest. It kills family time. And no “we’re like a family” speech can undo the burnout that comes from constant intrusion. Work WhatsApp groups were meant to make collaboration easier. Instead, many have become extensions of the office that never shut down. Real leadership isn’t about being “always on.” It’s about respecting boundaries so people can show up refreshed the next day. So ask yourself— Is your team’s WhatsApp group helping them or suffocating them? Please share your thoughts, lets discuss. #corporate #toxicworkculture #leadership

Your 10pm email sends a message (And it’s not the one you think) Maybe you're just clearing your inbox. Trying to stay on top of things. Showing that you’re there for your team. But when that message lands on someone’s phone at night, here’s what they actually hear: → “I need a response - now.” → “Work matters more than rest.” → “You’re falling behind if you’re not online.” Not because you said it - but because actions speak louder than words. Unintended? Of course. But culture isn’t shaped by good intentions. It’s shaped by what we do - especially as leaders. And even if they don’t reply, their mind is already back on work. They’re not disconnecting. They’re not recharging. So if you want a truly healthy, high-performing team, you have to stop rewarding constant availability over actual well-being. Here’s how to start: 🛑 Define firm limits. Set clear hours when communication stops - and protect them. 📅 Use scheduling tools. Got something to say? Schedule it for the morning. The message can wait. Their rest shouldn’t. 🌿 Encourage offline time. Make stepping away not just acceptable, but expected. Teams that recharge, perform. High performance doesn’t come from being “always on.” It comes from knowing when to switch off. Be the leader who helps their team thrive. ♻️ Agree? Repost to help others. 🔔 Follow Martyna Papciak for more insights on EQ and human-centered leadership

WHOOP, the health and wellness company, did a study on the performance of their team and found that it improved significantly when their team had an effective nights sleep (90 minutes or more of deep or REM sleep), or 7 hours of sleep overall. So much so that they now have a "sleep bonus". It’s one thing to say get more sleep, but it’s another thing to actually pay your team to get more sleep. Now, obviously, WHOOP is a product that monitors sleep, strain and recovery, and I have no doubt the study had to do with bringing awareness and focus to it. However, have you, as a leader, ever thought about how YOU are encouraging your team to prioritise sleep? Or are you actually just sleepwalking into harming your own team’s performance? As a leader, if you're sending emails at 10 pm, even if you're not expecting your team to respond, please know they're still thinking about it. They're going to read it at 10pm at night, just before they go to bed, and this alone will generate an emotional and biological response, good or bad. That in itself will impact and delay the onset and rise of melatonin, a necessary hormone to enable sleep. Most people (70% of those that take my energy survey) are doing enough on their own to hinder their own sleep, they don't need you making it worse. Are there small changes you can make as a leader to really help build a healthier culture that truly enhances and protects the wellbeing of your people by recognising the important role of recovery in sustainable performance? So, are you helping or hindering your colleagues and your team?

It's Sunday night. Are you about to send a work email? Don't. (At least if your company's normal workweek is Monday-Friday! If you work for a company with a work from anywhere anytime policy, that's amazing! This may not apply to you. But in a traditional business with set hours like I've worked in most of my career? Read on.) Before leaving the corporate world earlier this year to launch my own business, I worked in the world of HR for nearly 30 years, leading HR for 25. So I get it. If you are a leader, you can't always shut your laptop at the end of the day Friday and forget about work. But you can try. And if it's not possible, you can help make sure your team has a much needed weekend or evening break. How? If your work hours are all over the place, schedule that email to be sent during normal business hours. It's easy to do in most platforms. (NOTE: This is easiest if your team is in one time zone on roughly the same schedule - it's trickier, but not impossible, to work with each team member's time zone.) You may tell your team it's ok not to respond to emails, or even have a bounceback email that says something like that. But what matters more than intent is impact. The impact of a team leader sending copious amounts of emails during non-work hours can have the unintended consequence of making your team feel like they have to work 24/7. That they have to check their email constantly even when off for a day or a week. And while that may be in some cases, and certainly urgent issues come up from time to time, most of the time it's habit. That feeling of always having to be on is not sustainable to most people - and can and will lead to burnout. We talked about this a lot with the executive team at my last company because my team members felt this deeply from all across the company. As executives we couldn't necessarily always shut off at the end of a day or week. But we could make sure our people did. If we had to be plugged in or wanted to be catching up on email on the weekends, we scheduled our emails to be sent during the workweek. If something came up that was urgent and we needed a team member? We called. It wasn't perfect. But it was something. And it gave my team - who felt comfortable bringing up these concerns - a break. Which gave everyone else who might not have been comfortable saying something a break as well. Most of the time that email can wait. And that gives you a break too.

I used to reply to client messages at 2 a.m. Even if I was already in bed. Even if it meant opening my laptop again. Even if it made me anxious, overstimulated, and tired the next day. Why? Because I didn’t want to miss out. I was scared they’d hire someone else if I didn’t reply fast enough. I thought being “on” 24/7 was just part of freelancing. What I've learned: it’s not. And it’s not sustainable either. Yesterday, I shared why I don’t reply to client messages first thing in the morning. Today, let’s talk about the other side of the day: nights. These days, I don’t have a fixed time where I log off (my schedule varies). But once I’ve finished my to-dos and shut down for the day… I’m done. Unless it’s truly urgent, I no longer reply to messages late at night. And you know what? The world didn’t end. Clients didn’t run away. I didn’t lose opportunities left and right. Instead, I gained something: peace. The kind where I can cook, sleep, cuddle my dog, or watch a movie… without flinching every time I hear a notification. If you’re still in that “always-on” phase of freelancing, I get it. But if you needed someone to remind you: You’re allowed to rest. You’re allowed to have boundaries. You don’t need to be available 24/7 to be professional or successful. Have you also had to learn this the hard way or what aspect of work-life balance did you struggle with in the beginning? #Freelancing #Boundaries #MentalHealth #WorkLifeBalance

Kal raat ko ek founder ne mujhe WhatsApp kiya at 11:53 PM. Message tha: "Just checking if you've reviewed the proposal yet?" I didn't reply until morning. Couldn't sleep properly though, that little notification kept nagging at my brain. Funny thing? When we talked today, he casually mentioned: "Oh, I didn't expect a reply last night. I was just sending it while I remembered." This tiny moment captures exactly how digital communication is silently breaking our mental health at work. Aur ye pehli baar nahi hua hai. I see the pattern everywhere (including with myself) and I am sure you have experienced this yourself. The way we message each other is creating a silent mental health crisis in our workplaces and here are 5 simple ways you can change them: 1️⃣ From "Reply ASAP" to "Please respond when you have time" Impact: Reduces anxiety spikes and gives people space to prioritize properly. 2️⃣ From "Kuch progress hua?" to "Here's exactly what I need by when" Impact: Eliminates uncertainty and the constant feeling of never doing enough. 3️⃣ From "CC'ing everyone just in case" to "Only including essential people" Impact: Fewer interruptions, clearer ownership, lower notification fatigue. 4️⃣ From "Urgent! Important! PRIORITY!" to "Here's why this matters now" Impact: Reclaims meaning for urgency and prevents emergency fatigue. 5️⃣ From "Call me" with no context to "Let's discuss X - here's why it needs a call" Impact: Reduces anticipation anxiety and helps people prepare effectively. Digital habits are like chai on white kurta. Each drop is tiny, but eventually, the stain becomes impossible to ignore. Aapne kaunsa digital communication pattern dekha hai that completely drained you? Share one example and let's crowd-source a library of what NOT to do. Better yet, share the one digital communication shift your team made that actually helped your wellbeing. Those small wins matter more than we think. P.S. Next time someone messages you at midnight, send them this post. No explanation needed. 😉

Why late-night email checks are disrupting your sleep more than you realize  🌙 Ever found yourself scrolling through emails just before hitting the pillow? 📧💤 You're not alone! I had a client, a partner at a CPA firm, entrenched in tax season, who got in the habit of checking emails right before going to bed to make sure he didn’t miss anything. I’ve been guilty of this too because let’s be real - we think that checking emails before bed will make us feel like we’re on top of your responsibilities. However, a peek into his Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) data unveiled a startling truth. Alongside the expected post-dinner blood sugar rise, there was an unexpected spike at 10 PM. The culprit? His late-night email email routine! 📈 This seemingly harmless habit triggered a stress response, elevating his blood sugar and reducing melatonin production, all of which sabotaged his sleep quality, leaving him groggy the next day. Scroll through to see the graph! What we don’t realize is that when we trigger a stress response it signals our body to release cortisol which results in decreased melatonin production and a rise in blood sugar (to name a few things). This is exactly what we DON’T want to be happening when we’re getting in bed to shut our eyes and go to sleep! Once he saw this graph with his own real-time data showing how his body responds with a stress response, it all clicked for him and he was motivated to create better boundaries around emails. 🌟 Embrace the wisdom from this client’s breakthrough and establish your own email boundaries for better sleep and brighter mornings! 🌅 #sleepwell #emailboundaries #healthyliving #productivitytips #digitaldetox P.S. If you’re curious to learn more about what real-time data can tell you about your body & current routines, you can reach out to me by sending me a direct message.

Your calendar is full. Your notifications won't stop. And somehow, you're still not doing "enough." I used to be you. 3 years ago, my business consumed every breath. → First one online → Last one to log off → Weekends? What weekends? I wore exhaustion like a badge of honor: • Sending emails at midnight • Taking calls during dinner • "Just one more thing" at 9 PM The scary part? I thought this was normal. I thought this meant I was 𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴. But here's what my "dedication" really looked like: • Scattered attention • Endless meetings • Running on caffeine and chaos • Disengaged mom • Terrible friend (what friends?) • No time for dates with the hubby The results were inevitable: → Made costly mistakes → Lost creative energy → Started getting anxiety with every new email → Questioned if I could keep going Then I noticed something: My best work never came from those late-night sessions. My biggest wins? They happened when I was fresh. Focused. Clear. Here's the truth no one tells you: -Your worth isn't measured in hours online. -Your impact isn't counted in midnight emails. -Your success isn't built on burnout. I completely rewired my approach: • Deep work > Endless availability • Quality > Quantity • Life boundaries = Better results When I stopped trying to do everything, I started doing what mattered. Real success isn't about being always on. It's about being 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁. ♻️ Share if this resonates. ➕ Follow me (Mary Southern) for daily posts and weekly podcasts. Resume Assassin Resume Sidekick #resume #jobsearch #boundaries

"𝐈’𝐯𝐞 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐥 𝐚𝐭 𝐦𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞. 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞." I recently came across a post where a CEO signed off an email with the above. It’s a nice gesture, no doubt. But it made me wonder - why send it at an odd hour at all? Yes, you’re not expecting a reply. But the minute it lands in someone’s inbox especially over the weekend or past midnight that boundary between “off-time” and “work mode” is already crossed. You’ve triggered a task list. A worry. A “should I do something about this now or first thing tomorrow?” And that’s the bit that gets overlooked. Instead of disclaimers, maybe we just… hold off on sending? Use the “schedule” button. Or save it as a draft. Because the most mindful thing may not be what you say - but when you say it. Leadership, after all, shows up in the quiet choices too. Especially in how we respect others' time - even when we’re working outside of ours. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬? Drop your thoughts in the comments below 👇 Let’s talk boundaries that actually work. #Leadership #TeamCulture #DigitalBoundaries #WorkplaceWellbeing #Mindfulness