@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ There is no situation in which sending your email with a delay makes any positiv
"_But Jack,_" so the counter-argument goes, "_you're committing the classic engineer fallacy of only considering the systematic mechanical interactions, and forgetting the personal and political! If a subordinate receives an email from their superior while out-of-office, they feel pressured to reply to it! Sending emails during out-of-office times is putting unfair pressure on recipients to reply!_". To which I say..........what the fuck? _Seriously_?
* FIRST OF ALL, why the hell are you checking your work email while not working? Look up what a Work-Life Balance is, and get one! Don't let work consume your life - work hard and focus while working, but leave it behind when you're not! Did you know that the French [passed a law making it illegal for businesses to require their employees to be available for work-related communication outside designated work hours](https://mymodernmet.com/french-law-bans-workplace-communication-after-work-hours/)? As an Englishman, I am obligated to never approve of the French; but damn they know how to stick up for workers.
* Secondly, even if through some odd confluence of situations you happen to become aware of a work email outside of work time, why do you feel pressure to reply to it? Either your boss understands that personal time is personal time, and that they only have a right to your time when you're being paid for it; or they don't understand that, in which case you should be using your spare time to _look for another position_. And if you're a manager who believes that such a culture exists in your team, then you'd damn sure better be doing your best to oppose it by including an email signature stating that you only expect replies during work hours, and actively checking up on anyone who replies outside work hours to make sure they knew it wasn't expected.
* Secondly, even if through some odd confluence of situations you happen to become aware of a work email outside of work time, why do you feel pressure to reply to it? Either your boss understands that personal time is personal time, and that they only have a right to your time when you're being paid for it[^overtime-exists]; or they don't understand that, in which case you should be using your spare time to _look for another position_. And if you're a manager who believes that such a culture exists in your team, then you'd damn sure better be doing your best to oppose it by including an email signature stating that you only expect replies during work hours, and actively checking up on anyone who replies outside work hours to make sure they knew it wasn't expected.
So - the problem isn't the email timing, it's the culture. If your work culture expects that emails will only be read and replied to within work hours, then everything becomes simpler and easier - you can send whenever you want, without worry that you'll be pressuring someone. If your work culture expects emails to be replied to immediately 24/7, then the time and energy you spend piddling about with "Send Later" would be better spent on changing that culture to something healthier.
@ -56,4 +56,5 @@ There's a broader point here - about how different people have different ideas o
[^email-culture]: Such as in [this thread](https://twitter.com/jacksquaredson/status/1580360715432361985) - linking to the end, scroll back to the top.
[^timezone-adaptation]: Sure, tools could take care of this for you - "_It looks like you're trying to send to someone in a different timezone. Would you like to delay it?_". That mitigates the cognitive overhead aspect (though not entirely - it might have my timezone wrong, or I might just be working odd hours this week), but not the key point that **delaying does no good, and some possible harm**.
[^not-hypocritical]: And please note that I'm not being hypocritical by advocating against "delayed send" here, while previously advocating for urgency metadata. Delayed send is a fundamentally different thing - it _reduces_ recipient choice by _preventing_ you from reading the message even if you would have wanted to. Urgency metadata is another dimension on which recipients can set preferences, but the experience is still ultimately fully controlled by the recipient: as it always should be in personal computing communication situations (**looking at you, advertizers**. You know what they call communication that gets put in front of you without you requesting it? Spam).
[^write-shit-down]: To say nothing of the long potential rant I could go on about how _writing things down, in a clearly-understandable way, in a persistent discoverable location_ is one of the most important skills for any senior knowledge-worker...
[^write-shit-down]: To say nothing of the long potential rant I could go on about how _writing things down, in a clearly-understandable way, in a persistent discoverable location_ is one of the most important skills for any senior knowledge-worker...
[^overtime-exists]: I'm not naïve - I know that I've described an idealized situation, and there are times even at the best companies when you're going to be asked to work overtime. It happens. The point is that is should be considered as an exceptional circumstance caused by a failure of planning, and that you are doing a favour by saving someone else's ass. If it happens more than two or three times in a year, or if there isn't compensation like unofficial time off, that's a red flag that your goodwill is being exploited to cover someone else's mistakes.
