Use Peak Schedule Email To Improve Your Work Life Balance

Like many people, I used to be a slave to my work inbox. It's hard to maintain a decent work/life balance when you're receiving business emails during evenings and weekends. Sometimes it's due to a workaholic colleague, or someone in a different timezone, or just those damned automated reminders from the finance system.

I don't want to carry a separate device, and I know I can't rely on will-power alone. So, I've been using Samsung's "Peak Schedule" feature for its Android phones.

I know I usually rag on Samsung for writing crappy replacement apps for Android - but in this case, their email offering is far superior to Google's default app.

Here's how Peak Schedule works: As you can see from the screenshot, my email gets pushed to me Monday - Friday 0900-1700. The second the clock ticks over the 5pm line, I stop receiving email. My phone doesn't buzz with a work message until I'm safely in the office.

To be clear, I can manually refresh my inbox and check my email if I need to. I am the master, not the slave.

At different jobs, I've set different schedules. If I'm taking the train, I have email waiting for me when I start my commute - rather than downloading it as I rush into London.

The option is hidden away somewhat, to get there, click

Email > Setting > Your Account Name > Sync Schedule

Sadly, this doesn't work in Gmail - so you can only use it with non-Google email providers.