While email has tremendously changed how we communicate, it also contributed to our lives becoming much more fast-paced. You used to wait one or two weeks for a reply to a letter. These days it may take a few hours or, if it was just a quick note, mere minutes until you have gotten a response. You would be justified if you felt that things get done a lot quicker nowadays. This is slightly misleading, however, because there is also infinitely much more noise in communication. Even a moderate number of emails can be overwhelming, and while we are sending emails back and forth, new ones just keep coming in. However, there are some good strategies for stemming the flood. 

You probably already suspect that you don’t necessarily get much out of emailing back and forth short messages, and may even have developed the habit of waiting for a response as it usually comes within one to two minutes. From a productivity angle, this is of course disastrous as it will prevent you from proceeding with all the other undoubtedly more important things you should focus on instead. For this reason alone it makes sense to resist your urge to reply immediately, if it’s not urgent, and you know that the result will only be a pointless back-and-forth exchange. 

Of course, you have to reply to some emails, and even if it’s just because it’s part of your job description. Yet, if you don’t work in a customer service role, you can normally afford to wait at least a few hours until you get back to whoever contacted you. After all, you should be tied up in various projects anyway. For the really urgent things you may want to communicate that people should call you instead. If your boss thinks this isn’t inappropriate, then find a way to explain to him that if he lets you have your way, you will be wasting much less of the time he is paying you for. 

Check your emails no more than three times a day, if you must. Once in the morning, then after lunch, and before heading home. Eventually, you can reduce this to two or even just one time a day. Your private emails you shouldn’t check more than once a day. If you do this, you’ll finally get some real work done during the day, which is a nice bonus in addition to not feeling the pressure of having to reply to every email just this very moment.