ArJ.uNo

It seems to me that as you grow old, your rate of getting emails increases. Or at least thats the case for folks in academia it seems. The question is, how do you respond to these emails or take actions on these emails. This is what I do, and I am eager to know how others do it. I have a huge hierarchy of email folders and I have Inbox. There are different groups/clubs I am attached with. I have email filters which filter emails from these mailing lists and send them to their respective folders. These are the emails which I don’t want to respond to or read immediately. All my work emails and other emails remain in Inbox. And they remain there till I have taken action on them. That may mean just reading them again, or replying back or doing something else. So, basically, at any point of time, my Inbox has emails that are either unread or I haven’t taken action on them. Now sometimes, I get emails to which I want to respond but I don’t have time/I am lazy. They stay in Inbox. And sometimes they stay there for a month or so. And sometimes when I get back to those emails, I see that there is no point replying to them anymore. Now, I feel bad about that because I usually claim that if you have emailed me, I will reply to it even if I reply late. So, what do you do?

Source: How to handle emails – by rohitj (true copy)