Taking a second look at mental well being. A couple of thoughts...disabling the cell phone. Was, Lex Anteinternet: On taking and not taking vacations.

A week ago I published this item, based on something I'd heard about at a recent conference:

Lex Anteinternet: On taking and not taking vacations.: No travel?  Maybe you should. vacation (n.) late 14c., "freedom from obligations, leisure, release" (from some activity...

As noted, that was a conference on legal topics, but it touched on was a finding that taking vacations seemed to be the big key factor between lawyers being happy in their work, or not.

I can see that being a major factor, and something that lawyers (and all Americans) ought to really do. Other advanced economies don't see their workers skipping their vacations. It's a weirdly American thing.  Maybe its a weirdly lawyerly thing too, although I somewhat doubt that.

Anyhow, in terms of minor, or maybe major, things that people can do to improve their mental well being and improve their state of mind, another thing would be simply this.

Limit your cell phone use and turn off the email feature.

I've never use the email feature on my "smart", i.e,. oppressive, Iphone.  Never.  I know how to use it, but it's shut off.

The only exceptions to this is if I'm traveling in some context where I absolutely, absolutely, need to access my email.  On that extraordinarily rare occasion, I usually turn it on, get the email I need, and turn it right back off.

Now, I'm sure there are some who think the email feature on their cell phones is fantastic.  If they're lawyers they're the ones who are in the corner grinding their teeth and look like they haven't slept for a month. And the reason is, they never leave work.

I hate cell phones, while I'll acknowledge there are some good things about them.  All in all, and I'm not merely exaggerating my view in order to make a point, cell phones are a human disaster. They create all sorts of problems for us.  As a minor example, they've caused us to lose the ability to read maps in detrimental ways.  Just a couple of weeks ago I had an experience in which some complete idiot was obviously checking his Google Maps while on a state highway and actually nearly stopped his car on a busy lane of travel.  I was able to get around  him, but I was lucky. He's a moron who should have his cell phone taken away and his driver's license revoked.

But perhaps even more detrimental, on a society wide scale and at least in the field of law, is that people leave their email function on and here the "ding" that email has come in.  Most people will check it and they will respond.

Some time ago an older lawyer I know who has been very successful in the field of law told me that not once in his career had he worked at home.  I was amazed, as I will work from home, but frankly, only good internet connectivity allows me to do that.  As I'm nearly in my third decade of this line of work, I can recall a time in which this was not the case and I could't work from home.

Back in those days, when I had this situation occur, I went into the office, and that's still the norm for me.  I normally don't work from home, but I occasionally do. When I do, it usually means that I check my email for some reason from my home computer.  But to do that for work purposes there's certain distinct things I have to do in order to make that work.  I just don't automatically pick it up on my home computer.

And I don't want to.

I have built in some distance between my work and my home life in that fashion.  But it seems a majority of younger lawyers haven't.  And it shows.