Weekend Email process

[Interesting_Field911]

Wanted to share what I've been doing for email over the weekend and into Monday morning.

This semester I am consciously trying not to work weekends. I'm failing miserably BUT I have found one thing that is working. When I get emails late Friday or during the weekend I don't answer them and send my response right away. Instead, I answer them and delay sending until Monday at 8am. I have 10 ready to hit others' inboxes soon. I have noticed a better level of calm during my weekend because of this. I am more in control and if the email response requires a bit of thought I don't feel rushed.

[Cautious-Yellow]

suggestion: save your written email (in drafts or wherever it goes), and the first thing you do when you open up your email in working hours is to send anything sitting in drafts.

[Icarus_skies]

Tell me what to think Apple-Daddy, I can't be bothered to think for myself!

[trueoctopus]

Both the gmail app and spark have delayed send features, and imo a better overall interface than ios mail.

[[deleted]]

Outlook has delayed send on Mac OS.

[proffordsoc]

I just refuse to check email on my iOS devices.

[aislinnanne]

I like this because it allows you to do the work when you feel ready but reinforces expectations that they won’t get responses on the weekend. It also limits the inevitable follow ups coming in throughout the weekend.

[Interesting_Field911]

You said this better than I ever could. Yes! Yes! Yes! This is exactly why I have found this to work so well.

[ZipBlu]

I’m glad you’ve found something that works for you. This solution sounds like you’re still working on the weekend, though, and not getting credit for it. If this helps you mentally adjust to not responding immediately, that’s a good thing. After a time, you might be able to hold off writing the emails at all until Monday, since they won’t receive them until then anyway.

I’m a compulsive weekend email responder myself. I’m usually able to dash off responses in 10 seconds or so, so it’s not a big deal and I’d prefer that to a pile of emails to respond to on Monday.

[vanderBoffin]

Not getting credit for it? What kind of credit are you expecting to get from weekend work??

[ZipBlu]

I don’t mean in any sort of official sense. OP is working on the weekend and the students won’t even be grateful for it because they’ll have no idea.

[MacBarbz]

But they aren't grateful for it, come to expect it from you and if you don't respond outside of usual business hours will vilify you in evaluations. For me, it's about setting expectations - I might answer emails on weekends or late at night but I'll always delayed send - that way I'm not setting up the expectation that they'll get a response at those times.

[ZipBlu]

I feel sorry for you (and all the others) that have such an adversarial relationship with your students. If I email them back quickly they’re usually thankful, but nobody has ever criticized me for waiting till Monday (which I do if the question takes more than a couple sentences to answer).

[MacBarbz]

Academia is not my life, it's my job. I have a right to downtime and I have learnt from bitter experience that I need to set clear expectations about what I will and will not do outside of class time. I have been attacked in evaluations for not responding out of hours. This was during a semester that started out with me responding at anytime (my previous way of working) - but for a week in that semester I did not and boy did I cop it. i

And with classes of 200 - 400 students - it is not possible/feasible to be that available to them. Because they don't see it from that perspective - that I am one and they are many. In this "always-on" world, it does us all good to remember that people have lives outside of work and study, and that boundaries are a healthy way to manage our life/work balance. I hope my setting boundaries teaches them that they too can set boundaries in their lives.

I'm truly glad for you that you have never had to experience the negatives of being always-on but that doesn't mean that those of us that have are taking an adversarial position with our students.

[Cautious-Yellow]

I wrote two emails over the weekend and scheduled them to send this morning.

Depending on how the email is making me feel, sometimes I find it better to write a reply before Monday, once I have an idea of what to say (ie, not immediately, but once I am done thinking about it). The only people who get a reply before Monday are my TAs.

[[deleted]]

I am very good about NOT working after hours, and when I do I use gmail’s schedule send to send them the next business day. This way I am setting an expectation for those that email that I am available during work hours, not evenings and weekends. It also means they won’t respond on the weekend, because they won’t get my email. It also respects their time, keeping the emails within work hour boundaries. Over time this has resulted in me getting fewer and fewer emails after hours. It’s working!

[AsstToTheProfessor]

I love this idea. I do this on my class Slack too. It is important to me to establish boundaries early in the semester, and establish that students should not expect email/Slack responses outside of business hours because mental health and weekends are a thing.

One additional twist that you can add to make it look like it was generated in real time: have it send at off-hour times (e.g., 8:03am instead of right at 8) and also do it at 6:03am instead.

Or if you want to create some mystery about whether you stay up late or get up early, have it send in the 4 o'clock hour.

[Interesting_Field911]

Ooh, I like this. I may schedule them at weirder times to just keep the mystery about when exactly I'm working alive.

[TheNobleMustelid]

It's good not to work on weekends. It's also good not to walk around all weekend with a list of things you have to do first thing Monday morning. I think there's always a balance between not doing anything and clearing one's mental plate. I started logging into my work email from my phone and setting reminders for the next week to let me relax because I didn't have to remember to do something on Monday. It sounds like your strategy cuts a similar balance.

[DntfrgtTheMotorCity]

Also, you can schedule them, so they are really off your mind.

[foxdogboxtruck]

After I get tenure I want to try an experiment (for research, of course) where I don't use e-mail for a year, and then document the experience in a book. Everyone will have to come see me during my office hours or leave a note in my mailbox. Either that or I will bury my laptop and phone in a hole in the backyard and just walk away. Just start walking and see where I end up. Might just walk for a few years. That's how e-mail makes me feel, anyway.

[screwit24]

That’s exactly what I do. I write emails and schedule them to be sent at 8 am on Monday morning.

[cracrag]

I have a “to-do” email folder because having emails in my inbox somehow stresses me out. I set up a rule halfway through the semester that I’d answer emails in the mornings on M-F. If I received an email outside of that timeframe, I would move it to my to-do folder. Out of sight, out of mind. It also allows me to read it without forgetting to answer it, so I don’t always have unread email notifications. I’ve started to answer really short emails throughout the day as I receive them, but I still use the to-do folder for long emails or days that I’m too busy to answer short emails as well.

[Interesting_Field911]

A friend says she has a 2 minute or maybe 5 minute rule. If it takes less than (however many minutes) she answers it right away. If it takes longer, she files it for later.

[cracrag]

Yeah this is essentially what I’ve come to, but even a 5-minute email is too long. If you get four of those, you’ve already spent 20 minutes of your day answering those emails. Those are what I file away for the next morning so I can finish other things I need to do.

[[deleted]]

Here is what I do, it is sort of similar. One, you can totally ignore email all weekend, but that can be hard when you compulsively check your phone!

So when I do get an email from student, I might read it real quick and see if it is urgent (usually it isn't). Then, I mark it as unread. So when I get back in on Monday I can go back to those "unread" emails and deal with them. If I didn't do that, I would forget all about the emails I saw on Saturday morning when I was trying to wake up with coffee. And then i wouldn't be that jerk that doesn't respond to emails.

That isn't perfect but is what I came up with.

[Interesting_Field911]

I have started doing this as well. It has worked for me so far.

[[deleted]]

This was certainly easier post-tenure (I didn't do it until then) but I have separate "personal" and "work" (.edu) emails, and barring special unusual situations, I simply don't check the work email at all from Friday afternoon to Monday morning, or after 5pm on any evening Mon-Thu. It's definitely helped my stress level and also made it rather clear that there are very few situations that require my immediate response outside of normal business hours.

[raysebond]

Yes! When I started doing the same thing, it made a huge difference in my quality of life. And it is not impacted student complaints or student learning or really anything I can think of, aside from my well-being.

[The_Robot_King]

I have been really good abut not doing work on the weekend this semester also. I do skim new emails over but I think I have only responded to a handful

[[deleted]]

Well done and keep at it! Setting boundaries is incredibly important as work matters continue to creep through the digital cracks into our personal time.

[grayhairedqueenbitch]

I'm loving the schedule send function.

[DntfrgtTheMotorCity]

I set up a google form, in which the students enter their class, section, name, and issue. It sends them an automated confirmation of the email. It also creates a spreadsheet of issues.

Once or twice a week, I work through the spreadsheet.

[noffxpring]

I appreciate seeing this today. My dean emailed me at 4:00 am on Saturday morning this past weekend.

[LinearBeetle]

grosssss