How you answer email depends on your job responsibilities. As a System Administrator, I receive automated emails for system problems and service requests from end-users. Therefore, as soon as I get an email, I read it immediately. However for some job responsibilities, prioritizing email is imperative. For example, it's reasonable to expect Project Managers to review their email once or twice a day.

Missy, Columbus, USA/Ohio

I coordinate a small weekly magazine. Using freelancers and with a very tight production I get an average of one email every 15 minutes for 8 hours, and send one mail every 25 minutes. I luckily get no spam. Also, the last 3 hours of my workday is used on a separate important layout production , further increasing the stress. With lunch and at least one meeting a day, I feel bombed with email. I've tried bulk responses but this does not reduce stress.
Trying to coach articles, answering phones, fixing images, producing full high quality (yeah really) newspaper pages in quark, leading meetings, and at the end of the day in-depth-reading at least 5 financial articles + hitting a deadline AND babysitting a few employees are sometimes almost killing me.

The only solution is actually TRYING to relax, and just work some overtime in order to cope and reduce stress. Better e.g. 9 hours of ok work, than 7,5 hours of insane stress.

Europe, Europe, Europe

This is why things like Gmail notifier exist! With proper utilities, you can let you computer do the stressful work for you.

Peter, Denver,

This is just a sign of compulsive behaviour. Turn the email client off! Show some discipline and organisation with your time! That's precisely why companies hire a person: for of qualities like being self-directed, responsible, disciplined adults. If someone asks why you didn't get respond to the email right away, say you were busy working (i.e. doing your job, actually working, accomplishing what was asked in the previous emali). Like respondents before me, I think this problem is ridiculous because it is blaming the tool when the person is the problem.

Dennis, San Francisco, USA

Oh... "Female workers felt under greater pressure to respond than men" well now then... is this not simply a case of being "easily distracted" by "gossip" and "chitchat" rather than actually doing "work"?

I get notified as soon as an email arrives in my inbox... I check it when I am able to devote time and resources to it. This is what we "men" call "prioritising" - a useful tool we developed when "women" decided that only "they" could "multitask"

David, Manchester, UK

I check email at work periodically. I do not use the alert feature and I keep the application window minimized, so that it does not intrude into my workspace. I delete messages that I do not need to keep. I answer all of my Inbox email every day, so that I start each day anew. I also use the features of the email application, so that mail is sorted for me based on either the subject or sender, which keeps my Inbox well managed. I prefer to actually talk with a co-worker, rather than email, unless a 'digital trail' needs to be created for some work purpose. Otherwise, I get up and visit the individual with whom I need to confer. This also provides exercise and a more interesting work environment, socially and productively. Email can be managed, it just takes practice and diligence.

James, San Francisco, California, USA

This is absolutely ridiculous. Email is the way important business should be handled. A sophisticated filter and forward system that eliminates spam (Bayesian spam killers eliminate 99.9% of spam) & sends you
text messages for important emails is all you need. That coupled with a quick glance at your email a few times an hour is NOT a big deal. I have two monitors open at all times, with my email maximized on the
2nd monitor. I usually catch new emails in my periphery coming in, look over… important? Respond immediately. Can it wait a few minutes til I’m done with my current task? Then I wait.

If I send out an email to someone requesting information, I expect a response within the hour. Honestly I expect a response within a few minutes. Time is an issue? Rubbish… someone that cannot type a paragraph as long as this one is in a matter of a couple minutes, needs to take typing classes.

Marc, Phoenix, Arizona

Well computers were the answer to all ills weren't they? Remember the "It will make lives a lot easier" selling point? They've created a boring world of constant pressure more like.....along with mobile phones. Now people are available to hassle 24 hours a day.

Judy , Liverpool, england

I was e-mailed the link to this and checked it straight away! I could be on the way to a break down!

Jim, london, london

e-mail ,
Is undoubtedly a wonderful tool in the main but in the wrong hands like anything else is an absolute Baffling political tool ,used by many an office bully to hide their deficiencies ,and or on the other hand used for blame association, quite often it deluges its recipient with demands for information & work for which they cannot hope to cope .
An effective tool with the great possibility of good uses and bad in equal levels
Like so many items

mark, stratfor, england

This is ridiculous. The whole point of e-mail is that you answer when it suits you - that's why it is called "mail" and not a telephone call.

People seem to need to get a grip of themselves and get their lives back

Mind you the other maxim "the more you send the more you get" also applies.

David, Dubai, UAE

At then end of the day, emails, like money, should be our slave not our master. Nobody tells us to keep checking every few minutes and getting ourselves stressed into the process. Most of us choose this way of working. Including me, until recently.

Switch it off until you are free to check your email at your own pace and in your own time. You'll be amazed at how liberating it is to be back in control.

Martin, Rayleigh, UK

Not one response and it's already after lunch!!. You must all be too busy reading email.

Tim, Ely, UK

I quite agree with with this, but I would add that many of the emails that we get are 'spam' and 'junk' emails, and much time is spent trawling through all of this rubbish to access the real thing, and then deleting all the stuff that we don't want from our folders because they get full up!! If we block the spam, then we can't access certain business emails that we are sent with attachments. It really is an absolute pain, but something that we could never operate without now.

Christine, London, UK