How many emails do you get per day?

[Baylor3217]

I work in IT and manage about 30 people directly.  Let's put aside the fact that that's impossible but that's how my huge company sets it up.

I get anywhere from 150-300 emails per day.  I filter what i can, prioritize and work email as best I can throughout the day.  Regardless, every single day I fall behind and it's not long until I have 2000 emails in my inbox.

Any of y'all in this situation?  Obviously, I could work 2-3 more hours per day and keep up with it, but I'm to a point in my career where my focus is all about productivity and efficiency, not being a workaholic.

Remember, no one ever put on their headstone "I wish I spent more time at the office"

[marty998]

I get around 100 a day. And whilst not as much as yours it is still a bloody nuisance.

Depends on the type of emails you are getting. Shouldn't be routine items that your staff are capable of handling. Should only be anything likely to cause grief at higher levels.

Dispense with the pleasantries, no more Hi xxxxx, how are you, thankyou for this etc etc. Just a simple yes/no/approved etc, with a 1 line explanation and hit send.

It's blunt, likely to generate raised eyebrows, but you'll find once people understand why you are doing that then the style will fast be copied.

[swiper]

I try to use IM more reliably at work, saving email for things THAT REALLY DO require a broadcast model. In fact, I wish my office would use IM/forums/newsgroups to replace much of our email traffic.

[BlueMR2]

I get anywhere from 50-500 a day at the office.  It's not very consistent.  Some days I blow 4-5 hours just on answering e-mails.  Some days I can get it all done in an hour.  I go into work counting on spending the first 1-2 hours just handling all the stuff that rolls in overnight and then just deal with the other stuff throughout the day in between other tasks.

[Alan2]

I get about 5 per day :smug:, 2 of which are rubbish and can be deleted without reading, 2 are just informational, and 1 which actually requires some sort of response.  However, I don't line manage anyone, I'm not on any committes, I dodge any of those colaborative extras that help one climb the greasy pole with an aversion bordering on the pathalogical, and I have spent years training my colleagues that their problems (probably) aren't mine.

(I'm not really a team player...)

[Paul der Krake]

The development team at work uses group IM software with backlog capability and we swear by it. Management does an excellent job from shielding the dev team from requests from marketing and such, so the only emails I ever get nowadays are from:

- non technical people with a quick followup on something that was previously pre-approved by someone else
- larger "where do we go from here" discussions that don't fit an IM window
- automated logs and report emails from various tools, which all get filtered out according to a set of rules

At home, I swear by Gmail's filters as well. I basically have 3 categories (newsletters/banking and bils/offers & coupons) that are set to skip my inbox and I only scan them for important things twice a week or so.

[BlueMR2]

However, I don't line manage anyone, I'm not on any committes,

I'm no longer in management, having moved down into a dev position.  I feel sorry for our managers.  They can get over a thousand e-mails a day.  If I need to send an e-mail to one of them I may not get a response for days.  Sometimes I never do as they will do big bulk deletes and occasionally throw out ones they mean to keep.  :-)

[Erica/NWEdible]

I get a bunch, but it's almost all nonessential. I read once about a executive who simply deleted everything that came to him and waited for the follow-up email ("did you get my prior email....?") in order to sort out what was actually important enough for him to look at and what was just noise. He did the same with physical paperwork, too.

I think this probably only works if you have a lot more people below you than above you in an organization, but think of the time savings!

[Snow White]

I am a manager and receive 200-250 emails a day but many I am just copied on and don't have to act on.  I have a highly detailed set of folders and I immediately archive most emails after opening.  I can find any email in seconds as I spend a lot of time creating this system and it has worked well for me for a long time.  I generally only have 20 emails or so in my inbox at the end of the day and typically because they are flagged for follow up.  Personally, I'd rather my staff copy me on certain types of emails as it keeps me in the loop and decreases the chances that I will get blinded sided by a problem I should have picked up on.  Email can be a monster that gets out of control though if you are not diligent.

[forward]

I am a manager and receive 200-250 emails a day but many I am just copied on and don't have to act on.  I have a highly detailed set of folders and I immediately archive most emails after opening.  I can find any email in seconds as I spend a lot of time creating this system and it has worked well for me for a long time.  I generally only have 20 emails or so in my inbox at the end of the day and typically because they are flagged for follow up.  Personally, I'd rather my staff copy me on certain types of emails as it keeps me in the loop and decreases the chances that I will get blinded sided by a problem I should have picked up on.  Email can be a monster that gets out of control though if you are not diligent.

I get around 200 and I am horrible at managing them.  Does anyone have a good source where I might be able to learn about creating a good system?  Its on my to do list but has been there for a while.  It seems that this is probably not a one size fits all solution. 

[mobilisinmobili]

On my personal email I've been unsubscribing from a bunch of things where I realize I never read the emails anyway.

For repeat offenders at work (emails get repeatedly sent that have limited/no use whatsoever) I have email rules in place in Outlook to move 'em straight to Deleted Items. I quickly scan over deleted items prior to deleting to make sure nothing important was put in there. Almost always it isn't.

[chucklesmcgee]

Create a filter to automatically delete any email that contains the word "unsubscribe".

Also don't check your email until mid-day or so and only check it once every two hours or so. When you answer any non-critical email, set the sending to be delayed until some very late hour the following day, say 4:18 AM. This will make it seem like you are both very busy but nonetheless working extremely hard to answer your questions. Once people realize it may take a day or more to get a response they'll figure more  things out on their own and avoid asking trivial questions.