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Before leaving work for her Christmas break in December 2017, Dr Erin Williams gave herself a life-changing gift. Instead of setting her standard Out Of Office email, the University of Edinburgh lecturer wrote something different in the autoreply box. She stared at the screen and paused as her hands hovered over the keyboard.
“I am currently on annual leave and will be out of the office until January,” she began, as most of us do. “Any emails received during this time will be automatically deleted. If any item requires my attention, please resend in January.”
Erin now sets this OOO whenever she takes a holiday. In all of that time, she has deleted hundreds of emails – but only two
