If life is just 4,000 weeks long, should I waste them on clearing my inbox?

Texts and e-mails from work will keep intruding into your personal time. Let's set some boundaries.

- Joyce Teo

It's almost the weekend, but you have unanswered e-mails. Deadlines loom and Slack messages pile up. You have no choice but to respond.

The truth is that, for many of us, the days of logging off work and blissfully forgetting about it until you log on again the following day is pretty much history.

Work-life balance can seem elusive and your mental health may take a hit. Let's face it. Digitalisation may have brought us convenience but it has also caused work to intrude into our personal life more than ever. This is something that Singaporeans are too aware of. Singapore is one of the most digitalised cities in the world, with a thriving digital economy and 99 per cent of resident households connected to the internet.

I remember this one time several years back when I was holidaying overseas — I was relaxed and happy, and decided to whip out my phone to try capturing not just the urban scenery but also the vibes of that moment.

But I never took that photo as my mind was instantly hijacked by a work message notification that led to an impromptu work session. The moment was lost.

At the office, when landlines first disappeared from everyone's desks a few years ago, I thought it was a good thing. One wouldn't have to put up with the constant ringing of phones and, in any case, we could be reached anywhere, at any hour, on our mobile phones.