I normally try to clear out the unnecessary emails while I’m on leave and only leave the actionable ones for my return. Makes the return much more pleasant.

One thing I did that helped was to change my outgoing email auto reply. It would be "I'll be on vacation the week of __ returning on August 18th."

Now I write "I will be out the week of ___ and begin replying to emails on August 18th."

This way it sets the expectation that it may take me a couple days to get through them all. On my first pass, I delete all the emails that can be deleted. That cuts way down on them.

Anonymous wrote:When I realize that not checking work email is causing me anxiety, I check it! Why are you here lamenting instead of just facing your fears and getting through your email? I'm not saying that because I think you should have kept up on email or done anything work-related while on vacation. I say this purely because it was help YOU.

Eh my post wasn’t clear. The email doesn’t make me anxious. The whole company is an anxiety riddled mess right now and I truly am not looking forward to returning to that. I truly enjoyed not having to deal with it the last week.

When I realize that not checking work email is causing me anxiety, I check it! Why are you here lamenting instead of just facing your fears and getting through your email? I'm not saying that because I think you should have kept up on email or done anything work-related while on vacation. I say this purely because it was help YOU.

I’ve been on vacation for the last week and while I peeked at email every now and then didn’t respond to a single thing. I am super dreading actually logging back on tomorrow (I work remotely). It’s bad enough to return from vacation but anxiety is at an all time high with the end of the fiscal year approaching (federal contractor) and I am very likely to be laid off in the next few weeks. Thinking about just calling in sick. Convince me why I shouldn’t…