Sunday becomes "catch up on email" day

I'm guilty of sending work-related emails pretty much every day of the week and at any random hour of the day. There's just no telling when a press release will hit the wires that I'm interested in hearing more about or some idea will cross my mind and demand immediate attention... lest I forget about it come the next morning.

I guess I'm not alone: A brief story in Fortune magazine (9/15 issue, page 22; no web link available) says that Sunday afternoon is now becoming "the optimum time to catch your co-workers' attention on the Internet."

Why? Because, for now anyway, that's when no one else is sending email, and you have a much higher probability of not being lost in the crowd. According to the story, just 3% of all emails are sent on Sunday, whereas 24.5% are sent on Tuesday. That explains why I only have 15 emails waiting for me on Sunday morning but may face 50 or 60 first thing in the a.m. during the week. There's also something to be said for catching staff when they're relaxed at the end of the weekend (and able to concentrate on the topic at hand) rather than frazzled by the daily grind.

The "working weekends" stigma and social norms are the only things really keeping Sunday from becoming "the new Monday," so for now it's probably bad etiquette to start hassling your employees or pestering clients on their day off. But for more thoughtful issues like posing brainstorming questions or positing questions for extended mulling, Sunday may just be the best time to engage your colleagues since they aren't overloaded with the daily pressures of work.

The price, of course, is one of sanity: If too many people start sending messages on Sunday, even the most dedicated staffers may simply stop checking email over the weekend altogether.