Don’t Hit Send After 4pm…
How many times have you wanted to hit "Undo", 5, 10, 15 minutes...or even hours after sending a poorly written or mistake laden message? I have...dozens and dozens of times, and if you haven't you probably should have.
When I started work as an intern and grew into my full-time role as an engineering graduate, my first professional mentor, Tom McCann, didn't have to deal with stereotypical "young people" issues. I always showed up to work on time, took my job seriously, and often worked extra hours. Work from home wasn't a thing and Instagram hadn't launched yet.
However, I was a professional handful; our boss would often say I walked the tightrope between confident and cocky, or between assertive and aggressive.Make it stand out
He was being polite; looking back I was simply just cocky and aggressive. Being confident and assertive are positive attributes, however pushing too hard and too fast turns those assets into liabilities.
That was also the case for my level of haste; I was in a race to get things done too quickly. It led to mistakes, silly errors, embarrassment, and a few times...thousands of dollars of contract omissions. Many of my errors occurred after the office was empty for the day and I was in a rush to get things off my plate. That's when Tom sat me down and gave me the sage wisdom, "don't hit send after 4pm." He told me that was his motto for the past 30 years (fax included) and it is a motto I work by to this day.
"Don't hit send after 4pm" isn't a rule, but rather a mindset. It means to be deliberate, purposeful, and careful with your words. I've developed my own interpretation over the years and its morphed in the era of remote work with customers worldwide. Read, re-read, and proofread; your words (and numbers) are powerful and can be very damaging if you are not purposeful. Most importantly, after a long day, rethink the urgency of a task. Will it matter to anyone if you send it at 8:30am the next day? The task is truly complete after it makes in impact with the receiver, not when you check a box on your task list. It will be far more damaging to all parties if there are significant errors.
Later in my career, my customers and supervisors were always far more impressed with a thorough and mistake-free product rather than a rushed turnaround riddled with mistakes. Tom was always slow and methodical; it was never held against him. In fact, that attribute often made him the sounding board for impactful decisions. For years I found myself addicted to the urgent pace I had as a young engineer. However, I now take great pride in a delayed response, a thorough answer, or being that neutral sounding board that Tom was for me early in my career.
As I continue to build Unispoke Design, I look forward to sharing some of the building blocks that have enabled me to have the confidence to try building my own business.
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