Why you should keep your work and personal email separate

Email is the modern day postal mail. It’s a very rare thing to find a person who doesn’t have an email address. It’s the link that ensures we receive updates from friends, invitations (can’t recall the last wedding invite I received via post!), tickets, bills, junk mail, offers, and keep up with new information. On top of all this, a majority of work places run off of email, so there’s another address for people to manage. And although it seems logical to have everything come to the one (work) email address, especially as most work places are becoming more relaxed and allow personal email moments, keeping work and personal emails separate is something that I encourage my clients to do. And I do so for two very important reasons:

It maintains work/life balance;

By keeping your work and personal email, you can switch off outside of work hours, helping you not be drawn into work crisis’ which can quickly happen if your eye is drawn to a subject line or you see someone has replied that you’ve been waiting on. Switching off signals to your brain that it can relax, allowing you to focus on the rest of your life.

It also helps protect your professionalism and privacy by reducing chances of making mistakes (sending something to the wrong person) and also your work’s ability to see your personal correspondence.

It allows for smooth life changes;

Retirement, maternity leave, change of jobs, illness, you name it. Life changes in some way or other for all of us and having your email separated out helps with the transition.

A client of mine was nearing retirement and had been at his role for over 15 years. Although this is becoming rarer and rarer, it highlights the importance well. His family and friends had his work email address, he’d signed up for every membership with it, every holiday trip had been booked with it, every bill was being sent to it, and the list went on. Sifting through what he wanted to keep and what needed to be filed for work, unsubscribing to mail lists and redirecting future email was tiring and took a good while. My client was fortunate that he had the foresight to do this ahead of his last day at work and was leaving on good terms; some people aren’t so lucky. It’s best that when you leave a work place it’s only work email and correspondence that you’re leaving behind.

If this is making you feel overwhelmed, please breathe, I got my client through it and I can help you. Book a time to chat here and lets see how we can separate your personal and work email.