Any Hour


The article from The Cut is making the rounds. People are loving arguing about the strongly-worded advice laid out in it. Everyone has their own hell yes’s and hell no’s.

Here’s a hell yes from me:

94. It’s okay to email, text, or DM anyone at any hour.

There’s nothing worse than being woken up at 2:30 a.m. with a dumb text or a Slack notification. So why did you do that to yourself? Phones and computers have great tools now to manage your time away, including setting working hours and muting types of notifications. We’re responsible for which flashing lights and noises we let into our lives. Because of that, anyone should feel free to text a friend or message a co-worker at any hour. We can’t successfully move into the future unless we recognize that the onus is on the receiver, not the sender.

Ya know, so long as there isn’t an exploited power dynamic at play, like a boss expecting a reply at any hour forcing you to keep notifications on.

Email appears a few other times, like this interpersonal one:

130. Sit down and respond to an email, even if it’s a year late.

Then be honest about the fact that you ignored it in the first place.

Meh. Sure, go for it. Or don’t. Seems to nuanced for this list.


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