I don’t even have an e-mail address. I have reached an age where my main purpose is not to receive messages.
– Umberto Eco
I’m in an era where a large part of my work is consists of sending messages. End of week announcements for my classes, worksheets for tutorials, homework solutions, reminders about Seminar, Zoom links for meetings, and so on. All the various one-to-many messages that are needed to keep my courses running.
I like to schedule all these messages to go out well in advance. Last August, I wrote lots of e-mails about Thanksgiving Monday. I make lots of minimal viable e-mails and schedule them to send weeks or months later. From time to time, I add material to the pre-written messages before they go out. This reduces the length of my daily todo list and means that there is no pressure to write the messages.
This is remarkable to me because I used to live a very day-to-day life. Well in to adulthood, I was nervous about making plans. I wouldn’t do anything that involved firm commitments. I didn’t use a calendar at all.
And now, here I am, in my schedule send era. It is much less improvisatory than my prior living-in-the-moment life. There is less thrill and excitement to it. Sometimes, though, it can feel quite a bit like whacking a hoop along the road.
Published: Sep 29, 2026 @ 18:44.
Last Modified: Sep 29, 2026 @ 19:14.
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