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Am I the only one dealing with clients who send 50 Slack messages before 9 AM?
I had a client in Portland last month who would ping me 7 times before I even had my first sip of water. They wanted updates on everything, even stuff we agreed to check weekly. I spent 3 hours just replying to messages instead of doing actual work. How do you guys set those morning boundaries without losing the gig?
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lisab322d ago
Turning off notifications for the first hour in the morning helped me a lot... just told them I check everything at 9 so I can get going. Most people don't even notice if you're not replying instantly.
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wesley6391d ago
Oh come on @lisab32, I'm going to push back on this a little. Setting a hard "don't check until 9" rule is just trading one form of anxiety for another. Now you're just rushing through your morning routine watching the clock, stressing about what you might be missing. And most people DO notice if you wait hours to reply, they just don't say it to your face. The real trick is being honest about your availability without promising anything specific. I reply whenever I feel like it, sometimes instantly, sometimes six hours later, and I let people figure out my rhythm on their own. That way they learn to not expect anything from me at any particular time. Being predictably unpredictable is honestly more freeing than boxing yourself into some arbitrary schedule.
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the_elizabeth1d ago
What if I just keep telling myself I'll check at some vague point in the future and then totally forget until noon? 😅 Honestly I tried the "no notifications till 9" thing but somehow my brain treats hitting snooze on my alarm like it's the same thing as answering an email. Guess I'm just training myself to be consistently inconsistent.
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