The editor of Scene magazine Peter Davis recounted a dinner party in which the host offered to check the guests’ smartphones at the door. Perhaps smartphones at a party should be treated like coats, usually taken to a back room or otherwise stowed away until guests are ready to leave—a signal, like taking off your coat, that you’re happy to be here and you’re going to stay awhile. Leslie Perlow, professor at Harvard Business School, introduced something called predictable time off (PTO), in which you take a planned night off—no email, no work, no smartphone. At one company that tried it, the
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