How do you deal with too much email?

I was discussing this issue with some friends over dinner last night, and somebody mentioned that a very prominent player in SA’s social media space has this policy: any email that would take more than 30 seconds to deal with gets deleted.

I was horrified. I had written to this person on various occasions, got the “cold shoulder” and didn’t know what to think. Now I realize that since my email would have cost him more than 30 seconds of his time, it just wasn’t worth it to him. Aside from now being offended, I think the policy is rotten.

But, guess what? At least three more people have admitted to the same practice. One even said that if he has more emails in his inbox than he cares to read, he simply deletes them all, figuring that if there is an important email there, it will be resent!

Now, I don’t know about you, but my thinking is that email, despite its faults, is at least faultless in delivery. In other words, if I have sent it, you have received it. You might not have time to respond immediately, or act on it in another way, but the chances are it didn’t get lost. So, I am not resending it.

I am also not quite sure how anybody can run a business, or call themselves a communicator, based on these approaches to this essential communication tool.

Certainly, wading through email is not fun. It causes backlog, deer–in–headlight paralysis and feelings of guilt. And God knows I am no expert. I have about thirty emails in my Gmail inbox, highlighted with a star, that I must get to, but just haven’t found the time. (If you are waiting to hear from me, yours is there!)

I understand the value in responding to a 30–second–email immediately, since it is then out of the way and out of your mind. But why delete the others?

Tim Ferris, in The 4 hour work week (yeah, right) suggests we add a auto–reply saying something to the tune of : “we only read and act on emails once a week, so please be patient”. Others only access email twice per day, in the morning and before going home. Others insist on an empty inbox at all times.

I recently installed Remember the Milk application for Gmail, which does a great job keeping track of what needs to get done according to your email requests. Now, if it also actually did it, life would be good.

Spam is another problem, and one that deserves its own post. It has stopped hugely affecting me, since Gmail is excellent in catching it before it hits my overtired eyes. (Those Google guys are brilliant).

But I am not talking about spam: I am talking about genuine business and personal emails that are written by people who would like a response. I know some of you get hundreds per week. How much time does it take you to wade through them? Is it time well spent? How do you deal with the overload? Have you ever declared email bankruptcy?