Should you always be around to answer a work text?

Some people would tell you no, and some would tell you yes. It depends on the job. If you have a high-stakes one, your phone might be on all the time, ready to field info. But in those situations, you probably want to have an especially hard boundary around your personal time. When your phone is off, it’s off. But for the rest of us, we don’t really need to be on call. Maybe if you can pick up a shift when someone asks, you’re willing to do that for a good manager or a friendly coworker. But you don’t need to be bending over backwards just to answer some work texts when you’re on your personal time. Personal time is everything, and you want to protect it with all your might.