When a client texts at 9:30 pm about a sudden custody issue, how do you acknowledge their anxiety promptly while keeping a precise, dated record the attorney can act on first thing? I send a brief, empathetic acknowledgment and add a timestamped note with the client’s exact words, but I’m concerned it sets an expectation for immediate replies.
, 9:30 pm custody pings are rough… > send a brief, empathetic acknowledgment and add a timestamped note with the client’s exact I do that, then add: “Got this at 9:32 pm; logging for attorney review at 8:00 am; if safety is at risk call 911” — it acknowledges but kills the expectation of back-and-forth. I also set an autoresponder on that number after 8 pm mirroring the same language; would that solve the expectation creep for you?
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Counterbalance the tray side and include ‘cookie side’ as a fixed effect, or throw an opaque lid on the snacks — otherwise you’ve built a Posner cue with frosting ( Posner cueing task - Wikipedia ).
Happened to me when pizza boxes sat left; I fixed it by putting identical empty trays on both sides and moving the actual cookies out of sight behind the monitor, then logging hunger as a covariate. Given your 3:10 p.m. run and that “42 ms” right-side pull, add a quick no-snack baseline block first and compare within-session. @s_garcia1990’s Posner point stands, but the empty-tray decoy plus baseline usually kills the confound.
What if you set specific hours in your auto-reply? It could help manage expectations while still acknowledging their concerns. Have you tried that?