It’s so easy to get caught up in the momentum of being ahead of schedule on a project that we don’t often consider the impact that rolling ahead on a project will have on other parties involved.

Last week I spoke with a client who wanted to submit a press release on Friday afternoon. Now I can understand that we were ready to proceed and that it meant we would start Monday morning with a clean slate but I didn’t think it was the best idea. It may have been of benefit to our work schedule but I believe it would have affected the outcome of potential press coverage.

My belief is that most people have shut down for the weekend by lunchtime on a Friday. Unless someone is expecting something specific from me I don’t email anything of importance on a Friday afternoon. It’s my opinion that if we sent a press release to 50+ press outlets late Friday afternoon some of them might of read it and think ‘I’ll deal with it Monday’ and then totally forgot about it when Monday comes around or they may have just skimmed over it and filed it. Unless you have breaking news it’s safe to say you are not going to appear in the press last minute on a Friday.

The same goes for when you are calling journalists. A general rule especially on newspapers is 9am every morning is staff meeting time. No one is answering their phones and in my experience some journalists don’t return calls so if you want to talk to them you have to just keep trying.

Whether you are submitting a press release or if you do need to send important information to someone think about the timing. Think about what you like to deal with at any given time and this will give you some indication of what others are likely to do.