Office/Work Hours

[nelsonic]

I keep getting work-related messages from people at what I would consider "unsocial" hours of the day. 🕥
I need to address this once and for all so that both I can be more effective both in my "on the job" and "off" time. 👨‍💻

This isn't a question of me "Avoiding" my work or being "Unavailable" to work colleagues after hours.
Rather, this is a question of effectiveness and getting work done during work hours.

Context

I've been a 24/7/365 person for most of my adult life; I've skipped Christmas and New Year several times to work.
Working remotely with people in every timezone, I've answered work messages in the middle of the night many times
to "unblock" colleagues in Australia, Japan and America.
For someone living/working in GMT there is almost zero "overlap" with Auckland, NZ,
you can see this easily/visually on: everytimezone.com

At 09:00 GMT it's 22:00 NZDT UTC+13:

And by 18:00 GMT it's still 07:00 NZDT UTC+13 i.e. 7am:

Our friends in Auckland, NZ are just waking up and only the "early birds" would be at their desks by 07:00 ... 🌅
When we used to work with people in these distant lands we would either have evening meetings e.g.

It's not healthy to be staring at your phone all hours answering questions and it's not sustainable either. 20:00 - 21:00 GMT which would be 09:00 - 10:00 NZDT UTC+13 or they would work in the middle of their night to be able to meet with London at a more socially acceptable (to London) time.

# The Problem

The first reason answering messages after work hours is bad
is that it interrupts my "Family Time" where I try to be present
for my children, spouse and anyone else that I'm with in real life.
Staring at my phone when I should be focussed on the people in my life is a big "no no" for me. 🙅
It makes me irritable with both the people I'm with IRL and less patient with the remote people.
This is a lose-lose situation.
It might feel like the work is getting done because I'm "unblocking" people by answering questions
and some progress is being made. But this is a short-term view and it needs to be addressed.

Do Not Disturb

Apple devices have a Do Not Disturb (Focus) feature https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204321
that blocks all notifications - configurable to allow specific contacts e.g. emergency - to get through.
I often use this feature when I need to focus on some code or other Deep Work.

Communicating with People

Sadly, Apple's Do Not Disturb (Focus) feature does not tell the people you work with that you're "unavailable".
So they can feel like you're ignoring them. And even more sadly, they can take it as a personal "snub".
It's not.

So we need a way of clearly communicating our availability to everyone ...