You Should Be Using an Email Signature That Protects Your Time
And inspires others to do the same
“I do not respond to emails on weekends. If this is an emergency, please call my mobile. If you do not have my mobile number, then you do not have a weekend emergency.”
That was one professor’s bold out-of-office reply, and when it was discovered by the internet, it spurred a lively conversation about boundaries, office hours, and email practices. Stephana Cherak, a graduate student at the University of Calgary whose tweet sparked the discussion, later wrote a piece in the scientific publication Nature about the conversation in response to her viral tweet. The debate focused on the question of whether more people should employ either out-of-office auto-responses or disclaimers below their signature in outgoing emails that indicate boundaries about email and time management and serve to reassure the recipient that they need only respond on their own time.
Writer Anne Helen Petersen also recently mentioned the boundary-setting tool on Twitter: “A great, thoughtful, email signature on the message I just read while excavating my cave of an inbox: My working day may not be your working day. Please don’t feel obliged to reply to this e-mail outside of your normal working hours.”
