All of the hours bleed together. It’s 9pm on a Friday night, and you receive an email from a stressed parent. Nothing is able to happen until Monday morning, but you feel like you need to respond to the email. You take about 30 minutes to craft a response and interrupt your normal Friday family routine. It shouldn’t happen, but I’m sure that it’s a regular day for educators everywhere. When’s the last time you felt like you needed to answer an email after hours?
We live in an always on culture, and unfortunately, it leads directly to burnout. There is an expectation that teachers need to be on call, and parents are increasingly not great at boundaries. 2am and weekend emails. A constant stream of replies followed by more questions, more answers, and more replies.
It’s a neverending cycle.
Unless, of course, you break the cycle.
The easiest way to put an end to the cycle is to use an Out of Office (OOO) auto-reply. It’s something that every educator should use to take back our nights and weekends. A simple “I am out of the office and won’t be checking my email until 8am” does the trick. It conveys that your outside of school time is important and establishes that you will address the email but during school hours. The auto-reply also should ease anxiety for parents who now know that they have to wait for a reply. Of course, you may have parents who email again (and again), hoping to get a response. But the auto-reply sends a clear message. I won’t be responding until tomorrow.
To craft the perfect OOO response, try these tips:
- Be clear about when you will respond. My standard answer is within 24 hours, which gives you and parents an acceptable and realistic timeframe.
- Direct them who to contact in an emergency. This might not be necessary, but you can provide a Tech help line or other resource that could be needed in the moment.
- Provide a learning resource. You may want to share an article, an inspiring or funny video or other learning resource, or provide parents with a homework help line (if applicable).
My challenge to you this week is to set up your own OOO response. Make it professional. Let it establish your boundaries. And give your important time back to the people who deserve it.
Rich
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