You have mail

[ewx]

[Poll #1032774]

Comments

[tla]

Either I answer it immediately, or something makes me not answer it immediately and then it languishes for ages. There's very little middle ground.

[gerald_duck]

A lot depends on which address it's sent to, whether I'm at work, at home or elsewhere, and the nature of the e-mail.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

What chrysaphi said. Although I've got a lot better recently, with some organisation.

Things I *need* to do (like arrangements for meeting) are answered immediately or go on the todo list. Things I want to wait to reply to, either because I'm waiting for something from someone else, or because if I replied immediately it would take up too much time overall, go in the "follow up" folder. And whenever I have a moment I reply to what I need to, and whenever I have two moments I see what in fup I can reply to, and do so, or move it back to the inbox to reply to later but now.

Unfortunately, I still tend to have a stack structure (because emails that have been languishing for ages I'm not excited to reply to), so the longer something waits, probably the longer it *will* wait. Some things I just archive, others I work my way down to eventually, sometimes over years -- I've had one or two coherant conversations over than length of time :)

[naath.livejournal.com]

When I say 'immediately' I mean "as soon as I notice that I have the email I begin a reply". Very very rarely I look at my inbox and then have to run off rather than answering; even in these cases personal email from friends has a higher priority than other sorts of email (work, society-work, random LJ comments, freecycle etc.) to be actually looked at and answered. Of course I am not staring at my inbox 24/7! So email might sit for some time before I see it - I check email every work day and most weekend days.

Sometimes I don't answer a mail because it doesn't demand an answer (or I answer later in person) - I didn't count that though.

[pjc50.livejournal.com]

"with a highly random distribution"

[rmc28]

I answer immediately if I can. Most of the time I skim mail and deal with what I can until the next interruption. At intervals (like evenings, weekends) I attempt to clear down the outstanding emails. Older emails tend to languish until I work back to them. I have got noticably worse at dealing with email since Charles was born, with another step-change of slowness since returning to work.

When I go back to work full-time I expect to get even worse.

I used to blast away at outstanding emails/paperwork/housework by setting a timer and doing 15 min email, 15 min paperwork, 15 min get-up-and-tidy-something and 15 min "fun" i.e. LJ/irc. Now I rarely get as far as 15 min on anything before needing to respond to Charles, unless he is asleep, and then I either sleep as well, or rest reading, or frantically do as much as possible of whatever most takes my fancy at the time.

[imc.livejournal.com]

Yes, I find that too.

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

Instantly for random twitter, usually over a few hours or a day for stuff that needs brain; weeks if you're my mother.

[sphyg.livejournal.com]

It depends how urgent it is/how busy I am/how much brain is required. I need to some email catchup sometime in the next week.