how to use summer out-of-office messages effectively
It’s that time: the summer is stretched out ahead of those us in the Northern Hemisphere. So full of promise, the summer. We promise ourselves that this time we’ll get writing done, plan stellar fall classes, pick up a fun new hobby, and relax. We will do all the summer things!
What can help us carve out the time to do all the summer things? (even if our lists are over-ambitious) Those few sentences that go out automagically when someone tries to invade these magic weeks with an email.
Or, if you are like many academics, myself included, you apply the out-of-office message inconsistently, sporadically, and ineffectively. Maybe even offensively?
This summer, inspired by colleagues who do it better as well as research I’m doing on boundaries, I’m trying a new strategy.
A good out-of-office message can be a boundary and a filter. Like any good boundary, it tells people how you are going to behave. And as a filter, it lets some things in while straining others out.
First, the boundary piece. As academics, we are often terrible at asserting and maintaining boundaries. Except in one not-insignificant area: the syllabus.
Many of us have learned over the years which syllabus policies we are comfortable enforcing and which seem too draconian. For example, I can’t handle enforcing a no late work policy, so I don’t have one. Instead, I’ve devised a policy that works for me and which students can count on me to uphold.
I’d suggest something similar for the out-of-office message. If you state that you are not going to be checking email, but then fire off daily emails to your department chair, grad students, or the colleague who serves on the faculty senate, you and your interlocutors will quickly learn that this policy isn’t real. As a result, you and those who email you will both violate it.
So, I’d encourage you to be realistic about what you want your level of email engagement to be this summer and what works for your particular mix of responsibilities.
I have a blend of factors that I am considering at the moment as I craft my outgoing message:
1. I’m chairing a search committee, so I didn’t immediately throw the autoresponder on when we hit our last report day. There are a few tasks related to the search that I want to see through, so I’ll delay putting up my autoresponder a week or so.
2. Similarly, I’m planning a senior capstone class for which I’m inviting guest speakers. I don’t want to be an a**hole who sends request emails and then has an autoresponder up, so this is another reason I’ll wait a couple weeks past report date to put mine up.
3. I’m lucky to have a graduate student research assistant that I’m working with this summer and I’ll be checking in with him most weeks. Similarly, I’m chairing a PhD committee and am available to that student’s emails.
4. I receive requests from former graduate students who are going on or returning to the job market that often come in over the summer months, and I want them to have a sense of when and how often I’ll be reading emails.
How do these considerations payout in an outgoing message? First, I won’t be using the message all summer because I know I want to be in correspondence with some people who are not off during the summer’s early weeks. Second, I need to let some people know that I will be seeing their email and getting back to them. Finally, I want to set a clear boundary that I feel comfortable enforcing that also tells people I won’t be on email daily.
Based on these goals, my outgoing message won’t be posted for a couple of weeks, and it will look like this:
I hope you are well. During this off-contract time I'm working on my book manuscript and traveling, so I may be a little less responsive than usual. I will be checking email on Tuesdays and Thursdays and will respond to emails on those days.
Second, the autoresponder as filter. When I told people in my network that I was writing a post on the topic of the summer out-of-office message, I asked for feedback from folks who are not on 9-month contracts. Specifically, I wanted to know what was annoying about these outgoing messages.
There’s the obvious advice not to be rude, smug, or extra “I’m so put upon” in these messages, especially given that colleagues who work on 12-month contracts may be receiving them.
However, there’s also the matter of people who work outside your institution who may need to contact you on a particular timeline. This might include conference organizers, journal editors, editors at academic presses, and so on. One person who works as a copyeditor and indexer mentioned that she’s often working on a relatively short timeline with academic writers, so the vague “I’ll be checking only sporadically” can be disconcerting.
In addition to the more specific and realistic message that tells people if you really and truly are not checking email or whether you are limiting your checks to certain days, you might avoid annoying professionals outside your institution by setting a separate message for emails that come from outside (the call is coming from outside the house!). Outlook allows this, and I’ll be using this strategy myself this summer.
Because I’m working on projects with a number of colleagues at other institutions, I’m not using an autoresponder at all for emails that originate outside my university. The exception to this will be the two weeks when I am taking family vacation and will truly be off email and eating oysters on the beach.
You’ll see a lot of opinions about summer work on social media, but the truth is that your policy needs to work for you. Institutions, jobs, responsibilities, and summer goals can vary significantly. The best out-of-office email is the one that allows you to thrive this summer.
I’m taking new coaching clients right now. If you’d like to do some coaching around boundaries, summer productivity, or another topic you face as a faculty member, you can book an information session here:
