You Ask, I Answer: Sending Mail on Sundays?

In today's episode, Sheila asks, why does your email newsletter come out on Sunday? Don't you think it's rude to ask people to work on the weekend? Email should be saved for the work week. I mean you don't have to read it on Sunday. You can wait.

I mean, if it's if it's really bothering you, just leave it unread in your inbox till Monday. The reason it comes out on Sunday is because when I started the newsletter, I was working at a company where employee side hustles were somewhat discouraged, right? Um, at least during work hours. Um the company at the time was this uh was actually an email marketing company and run by accountants and accountants being accountants. No offense if you are an accountant, but uh they were not super thrilled about employees doing anything other than devoting all their time and focus solely to the company, even if there wasn't necessarily work to be done uh at the time.

And so a consequence of that when I started this newsletter uh was that I decided to do it on the weekend, right? I'd write it and send it on Sundays. That way I could a devote the right amount of time to it, uh to putting it together, and B, uh it wouldn't get me in trouble with the folks at work. Right? Because again, they they weren't thrilled by it.

Uh now, granted, that was 11 years ago now. That's how long this newsletter's been around. And that company is now like two, three companies in the rearview mirror. So there isn't a need anymore for me to send it on Sundays. It's just what I do.

It's become a habit. I've structured my routine so that the habit of sending out this newsletter means it's predictable and it works with my schedule. And it's predictable for you in the sense that it arrives in your inbox on a specific day of the week. And again, it's entirely up to you when you read this newsletter. If you read it at all, I mean that's fine.

You don't have to. Again, that's your choice. That is your choice. If you work in a corporate culture where you feel like you need to to get ahead of the week, do it. If you feel like you need to decompress and not think about work at all during the weekends, do it.

Um, it's all individual choice, and there's really nothing that I would have to say direction-wise, that would be useful. You're presumably a competent consenting adult. You choose to do what you want in the in the privacy of your own time. I do think that at least for salaried employees, it is unrealistic and unfair for an employer to expect you to work on the weekend. If you're being, I mean, if you're getting paid for a 40-hour work week and you're working 40 hours during the week, then you probably should be not working on the weekends because you're essentially not getting paid for it, right?

Or you're saying that you're getting paid on a per hour basis less than what you actually are. I'm a big fan of if you're working, um, you should be getting paid. In my case, also, now that I co-own a company, I mean, we're always working. That's entrepreneur life. You know, you're always working, and you're never not working because you want your company to succeed, right?

And you will do what you have to to make sure that you keep moving the ball forward, you keep doing something. These videos that I'm putting together, that you know, I I record these videos on Sundays, on Sunday afternoons typically. Um that way it doesn't take up time during the work week. Uh and also it gives me the ability to compile questions and think carefully about the answers throughout the week before I record the video. That way it's not just sort of a dis disorganized, off the cuff rambling response.

It's an organized rambling response. So that's why the newsletter comes out on Sundays. Again, read it whenever you want. There's I'm I'm not looking over your shoulder. I'm not looking at my email stats and saying, oh gosh, you know, Sheila didn't read this on Sundays.

She's nope. No, that doesn't happen. I don't I don't look at that information at all. The newsletter is for your benefit. Um, it is coincidentally also for my benefit to my company's benefit, but it's first and foremost for your benefit.

So consume it in whatever form you want, whenever you want, however you want, or not at all. And that's that's totally cool. It doesn't bother me one way or the other. I hope it gives you some benefit. If it doesn't, then I would ask you to email me and tell me, hey, I'm not getting anything out of the newsletter anymore, and here's why.

Because that kind of feedback helps me make things better, helps me make changes. Uh at the very least, run a survey asking people, so what do you want? Right? What what can I help you with? What other things you would like to know?

It's one of the reasons why at the end of every every post on the blog when I post these videos up, there's a whole thing saying, hey, if you've got questions, click on this link to ask them here. Because I need those questions to be able to provide you uh the value that you're looking for. So that's why it comes out on Sundays. It's it's habit at this point. Um it does seem to work pretty well.

Um a fair number of people, probably about a third of the list actually reads it on the weekend, because some people like to to read it uh and be able to have time to digest it and not get caught up in the work week. But the other two-thirds read it, you know, Monday, some a few on Tuesday. But that's that's what the stats show. Anyway, read it when you want. It's it's up to you.

And either way, I hope you enjoy it. I hope you get value out of it. Thanks for uh thanks for the question. Take care. If you like this video, go ahead and hit that subscribe button.