While I try to only work during “working hours”, which are generally 8-5 Monday to Friday, but can go all over the place, I typically find myself being inspired to do work at odd hours.  I also frequently find myself writing emails that should be sent at a more opportune time (for example a project update shouldn’t go out at 5 PM on a Friday… no one will read it anyways, PLUS it will get buried in their inbox by Monday).

In the past I’ve drafted those emails and then manually sent them later. This both allowed me to funnel my inspiration when it struck, but also to get information out at the best time.  It did, however, require me to remember to actually send them.  That’s when I discovered the “send later” feature of gMail and Slack. 

This does exactly what it says… it will send your message at some later time.  It completely removes the delay between writing an email and sending it later.  I’ve found it particularly useful in scenarios like:

• Sending emails when folks are more likely to read them - especially useful if you’re writing updates on a Friday or late at night.  Having it send early the next morning brings it to the top of their inbox.

• Queuing up messages for people in other time zones - for example scheduling it to drop into a coworkers inbox at 8 AM their time, even if it’s midnight my time)

• Sending myself reminders to do something - I’m constantly sending things to myself in the future so I don’t forget something