How to quit sending non-urgent email during non-work hours
Plus my first-ever use of the Substack "poll" feature. Exciting!
Hello and welcome to Academia Made Easier. I am so glad that you are here.
My email breaking point occurred at Costco on a Saturday afternoon. Walking into the store, I remembered a question I had for two colleagues. I instinctively grabbed my phone and emailed them. By the time I had reached the bakery, I had heard back from both. And the whole experience bothered me.
It bothered me because I suddenly realized that my action of moving a small, non-urgent item from my mental to-do list onto theirs on a Saturday afternoon was a rude intrusion onto their weekend. And while one could argue that it was their own choice to read their email outside work hours, in that moment I understood that I was contributing to the very academic overwork culture that I struggled with.
Academics often enjoy considerable autonomy over their schedules, at least in comparison to individuals working in other sectors. This flexibility can be wonderful, but the downside is that it is very difficult to establish and maintain boundaries on work time. If, at any given time, we could be working, it is easy to feel like at any given time we should be working. When do we allow ourselves and our colleagues to not think about work?
What particularly bothered me with my Costco email experience was the fact that my actions were out of line with my own values. I was a department head at the time and felt a responsibility to “set the tone” for my departmental colleagues. But my actions were signalling that one should work outside the university’s normal operating hours - even when shopping for groceries. This was not what I wanted for my colleagues, my students, or myself. It was not a culture I wished to advance. And for that reason, in the Costco parking lot, I decided to change my email habits.
And that’s what today’s small thing to try immediately is all about.
One Small Thing to Try Immediately: Schedule Non-Urgent Email
My idea today is simple: send emails during your university’s normal work hours and don’t send emails during your university’s normal non-work hours. In my experience in discussing it with people, this idea can be a bit …. controversial.
Specifically, some people get very mad at me for suggesting it. “I collaborate with people across different time zones, so there are no real ‘non-work hours’ to my work”, some claim. “People know that they can respond whenever they like,” others insist. Still others argue, “We are all working all the time, so who cares?”
Not all of my ideas are popular.
If you are feeling resistant to the idea yourself, please hear me out. My suggestion is not that you cut yourself off from the flexibility of writing emails whenever you want. Sometimes you just want to blast through your inbox at 7 am on a Sunday morning so that you can start the work week with a clearer head. I get that. My suggestion, instead, is that you be mindful about when you send emails and that you err on the side of leaving people alone during traditional non-work hours.
If you are open to this, try the following steps:
Acknowledge the power dynamics of email. When a person with less power receives non-work hours communications from a person with more power, they also receive an implicit message that they should also be working. (Such power dynamics are acknowledged in “right to disconnect” legislation that allows employees to not engage in non-emergency work communications during their non-work hours.) In academia, this power dynamic can be trickier to recognize. Many faculty choose to work flexible hours and assume others enjoy this same opportunity. It is easy to overlook the power imbalances between faculty and staff, supervisors and graduate students, and tenured/permanent and contingent workers, as well as between men, women, and non-binary colleagues, and white and racialized colleagues. When you are mindful that not everyone feels the same privilege to enjoy uninterrupted non-work hours, it allows you to reconsider the assumption that “they will feel free to respond to my email whenever they want”.
Decide how you want to behave. You have agency over when you choose to email others. What do you want your work communication practices to be? What approach best reflects your personal values? For myself, I want my colleagues, coauthors, and students to be able to enjoy their non-work hours without me intruding on that time. In my role as an academic leader, I also want to foster a culture of work-life balance. At the same time, I don’t want to be so wedded to an “email hours” rule that I ignore others’ needs. My approach, then, is that I typically limit email to my university’s normal work hours; when I make an exception to this practice, it is because I feel the exception is either necessary and time-sensitive (emergencies do occur) or beneficial to the other person.
Figure out your technology. Many software programs (such as Outlook, Gmail, Teams, and Slack) include the option to schedule messages to be sent at a later time. In these cases, all you need to do is impose some self-discipline and take the extra few seconds to select the ‘send later’ option over the default ‘send’ option. If your technology does not have a scheduled send option, the solution to an off-hours email is to save the draft email and then remember to send it during normal work hours.
Set expectations. For years, my email signature has included the following: “Note: I typically reply to email between 7-8 am and 5-6 pm CST, Monday-Friday, within three working days. Out of respect for your work-life balance and my own, I avoid sending or responding to non-urgent emails before 7 am and after 6 pm CST Monday-Friday and on weekends.” I have had exactly one person object to this (and he was an asshole). I have also had dozens of people - mostly women - thank me for setting such clear expectations and ask if they can copy the text. (My answer: please do!) I fully recognize that I am at a career stage in which I have the privilege to set this boundary. You will need to consider what is appropriate and what feels safe for your own circumstances.
In my experience, delaying emails to be sent during work hours has been very positive. While my goal was to show respect for others’ time, I have also benefitted a lot. I now receive far fewer emails on weekends and in the evenings - in part because people are not responding to my own missives. I think about work less often during non-work hours. Overall, I am better able to focus on my non-work life - Costco shopping included.
I encourage you to give this small idea a try. Commit to it for a week, and then if it works for you, try it for another week. And please let me know how it works for you if you do!
Until next time…
What are your own email practices? Does the idea of limiting email to work hours appeal to you? Do you feel you have the agency to do so? I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Please hit comment or reply to this email (at whatever time you like) and let me know!
Stay well, my colleagues.
P.S. In case you are curious, Substack also has a schedule send option and I schedule Academia Made Easier emails to go out during normal Canadian work hours. Canada has six time zones (we are a wide country!) and today I am opting for Newfoundland Time Zone (NT). I just love the extra half-hour!
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Loleen Berdahl, Ph.D.: I am a twin mother, wife, runner, cat lover, and chocolate enthusiast. I spend far too much time binge-watching television and my house could be a lot cleaner. During the work hours, I am the Executive Director of the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy. I am the author of University Affair’s Skills Agenda column and my most recent books are Work Your Career: Get What You Want from Your Social Sciences or Humanities Ph.D. and Explorations: Conducting Empirical Research in Canadian Political Science.
I absolutely do this. Having a question, typing it out, and scheduling it to go out at 9am the next working day is habit now.
Recognizing that power dynamic you mentioned, I also am explicit about different rules for my students. I tell them to email me whenever they need to. I’ll respond when I can, but they should not hesitate to pass things my way even if it’s in the wee smalls of the morning. I tell them that I’ll set and manage my own boundaries and they’re not responsible for that.
I almost always schedule my emails to send during work hours. I have noticed a huge reduction in email responses I receive during the evenings and weekends since I started doing that. I have not yet added a disclaimer about email response to my signature line. Thank you for providing such a helpful template that I can personalize and incorporate.