Check It Continuously or Wait - The E-mail Debate!

[Jon Westfall]

E-mail is a nasty little thing when you really think about it. It enables us to communicate information faster than any other media available today, is flexible enough to allow us to use it both professionally (e.g. sending documents for review) and privately (e.g. sending pictures of our kids and pets), and is reckless enough to give birth to the most heinous annoyance of the 21st century thus far: SPAM. E-mail, love it or hate it, is here to stay - which prompts me to question how we use it. Last summer we had an interesting discussion about <a href="http://forums.thoughtsmedia.com/showthread.php?t=86081">E-mail organization strategies</a>, which revealed that there seem to be two types of E-mailers, those with clean inboxes and those with multiple pieces of E-mail keeping the inbox nicely stocked. Today I'd like to address a different yet related question: How often do you check E-mail?<br /><br />Checking E-mail used to be a quaint little thing back in the days of dial-up. You dialed in, hit &quot;Send/Receive&quot; and waited as E-mail goodness flowed in. Perhaps you did a bit of replying, archiving, or ignoring, hit &quot;Send/Receive&quot; one more time and logged off. Then broadband hit us, and many of us (I suspect) started keeping Outlook running, so that we could get email more or less as it came in (e.g. having it automatically send/receive every 5 minutes). Then Exchange Servers came around and we had Outlook in Connected mode, hearing a little ding every so often that called us over to it. Somewhere around this time, I think some of us became slaves to E-Mail: Hear the ding, check it out, go back to work until... DING... check E-mail, go back to work.... DING... etc...<br /><br />About 2 years ago, I read an <a href="http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/getArticle.cfm?id=1921">article by Henry Roediger</a>, in which he suggested that academics try to avoid E-mail maddness by setting up various times throughout the day to check E-Mail, and leaving Outlook closed the rest of the time. I thought that was nuts: I've got a Windows Mobile device - why shouldn't I continuously check my mail all day? After all, I can stay on top of things and keep my inbox nice and clean. I didn't think much about his article until late last year when I thought &quot;Gee, maybe I should try it&quot;... <MORE /><br /><br />So I opened up Outlook and I de-selected any instant notification options for E-Mail. No Desktop alert, no ding, no change in the icon. Outlook could now run minimized and I had no idea how many E-Mails were flowing in. I also put my Pocket PC or Smartphone aside and refused to look at it (I even turned it over so I wouldn't glance at it out of the corner of my eye). Guess what happened? I had some of the most productive afternoons on record. Flying through lecture notes, papers to grade, forums to check, students to meet with, papers to revise, etc... Sometime around the end of the day I'd bring up Outlook and find, usually, that nothing important had been missed. I'd do some quick replying, a bit of filing, and close up and go home. It seemed that I'd gotten to a happy place E-mail wise. I made the Outlook notification changes on my other PCs and prepared for a life of productivity.<br /><br />But it wasn't that simple. Some afternoons that I tried this, I did miss pretty important and urgent E-mails, which prompted people to call me, which was more of a distraction than E-mail had been in the first place. Other times I'd spend an afternoon working on a project that was delayed - a delay I didn't hear about until after the work was done because the organizers had E-mailed me about the delay. Still other times I'd miss personal E-mails which I would have liked to reply to quickly. It seemed that turning off notifications to E-mail wasn't a global godsend as much as a &quot;works 50% of the time&quot; measure. Now I could set up elaborate filters to let me know when certain E-mails come in while ignoring others, however that's pretty time consuming given the fact that the vast majority of my contacts have no idea that you can set E-mails to higher or lower importance, and the fact that I work with E-mail from a variety of sources (e.g. academics, students, computer technicians, geeks, journalists, software vendors, friends, etc...). Thus far a perfect solution has eluded me.<br /><br />Are you a continuously connected E-Mailer? Do you know the second an E-mail comes in? Or do you take an approach similar to Roediger's, and have pre-set E-checking times? And what works best for you?

[Brad Adrian]

The challenge I've had when coping with this issue is reconciling my PERSONAL style with my EMPLOYER'S culture. At one company for which I've worked, the unwritten rule was that we were expected to notice and respond to e-mails fairly immediately. In fact, I used to get follow-up e-mails and phone calls from people saying, "I sent that e-mail nearly 15 minutes ago and haven't heard from you..."

With my current employer, it's "understood" that everybody's too busy to constantly check our inboxes, so if you need an immediate response, you pick up the phone. This is the approach that works better for me.

Personally, I've had to teach myself to not drop everything whenever a new message arrives or to not check my inbox too often. As I was learning more about my newly-diagnosed attention deficit disorder a few years ago, I found out that it can take somebody with ADD around 45 minutes to get back into "focus" after an unexpected interruption. I've also learned that there are certain times of the day when I'm more productive performing different activities; as a result, I handle most of my heaviest inbox processing very first thing in the morning and late in the afternoon.

The unfortunate thing is that, if we were all a little more judicious when using the "urgent" flag, it would make it a lot easier to figure out exactly which messages need attention right away and which ones can wait.

[Don't Panic!]

I keep my work phone (Motorola Q) on continuous alerts but I only glance at the sender/subject line when an email comes in. If the subject line or sender seems important I'll actually open the email, if not it can wait until later in the day. I get my personal email through Google and only check that every couple of days on a PC. I know I could setup an account on my phones to be constantly connected to both but this is my personal solution to the information overload problem being continuously connected to email has been known to cause.

[schmenge]

One of the (many) reasons I prefer WM over a Blackberry (far and away the most common device at work) is that I want email on 'my terms." I am fortunate that our corporate culture is that even though some people use email like SMS email are not expected to be responded to right away unless also accompanied by an urgent voice mail alerting us to the email (that sounds like double, but it really does not happen very often. My view is that if you need something right away, call me. That's why I have my cell. If I don't answer i wouldn't be responding to an email either. ;)

[jwb1969]

Hi. I completely agree with Schmenge, AMEN! That's why I use my Pocket PC, because I am not a slave to my email. I want email on my terms. Where as some companies and people with the push techonology want email to be more real-time. That is what texting or IM'ing is for. Email is for me, is a STORE and FORWARD technology.

That said, one of my colleagues is a lab monitor for our racks and when we have lab issues, we need them resolved immediately. So that, said, there are some occupations that do require instantaneous responses, but I am fortunate that mine is not one of them. I check my email(both work and personal) about once an hour with my pocket pc or when I have downtime.

Plus with the advent of handhelds, has changed the scope of the initial email debate question, he posed, where he seemed limited to desktop email behavior. Obviously handhelds have increased our face time with emails as well as prolonged our working hours. I have sat in many restaurants and bars on the road and seen people tending to emails beyond work hours, myself included.

My two cents,
James

[makicr]

. . . must have email . . . must have email. . . all play and no work makes Craig a dull boy . . .

I have my AT&T 8525 constantly delivering my work email (through a Good Tech server) as well as mail from two of my gmail accounts. Several other gmail accounts and all five through TWC have to wait until I get home to check them.

Sometimes I think that I am a bit too connected; but hey, that is what tech is for . . . to make our lives "easier."

[daS]

I have four active POP3 email accounts and one IMAP. I manage each one differently. The IMAP (for my "day job") is easiest since I can have my desktop automatically download messages and still be able to see them on my Windows Mobile device. For the most of the POP3, I don't use automatic downloads any more. I check them periodically throughout the day either on my desktop or on my WM device depending on where I am at the moment. If I'm mobile, I use the phone to delete any messages that are SPAM or I don't need to save so that the desktop downloads are reduced.

Finally, one of my POP accounts gets LOTS of SPAM. I use the desktop to automatically download that one, since there's never anything urgent sent there anyway. If I need to check that one while I'm mobile, I use the WM version of GoToMyPC to view Outlook on the desktop.

In any case, my email is way too complicated and takes way too much of my time these days.:(

[Russ Smith]

I like having e-mail that constantly updates because, when I choose to read it, it's current. However, I learned some time ago that anything which is given the right to interrupt you is a productivity killer, especially e-mail. Just because it's possible for you to instantly respond to an e-mail is no reason to feel that you have to and doubly no reason for others to expect you to do so. My rules of thumb (business and personal) are "If it's really urgent, call." and "If it has lots of details, write an e-mail." (So if it's both urgent and detailed, do both.)

I make every effort to answer e-mail once a day, except when I'm on vacation. Anyone who's dealt with me for any length of time learns to expect a response (even if it's just "I'm looking into that. I'll know more by ____.") within a day, but not immediately.

[Jason Dunn]

Jon - a great article! I too, like many here, am overwhelmed by email and am constantly struggling to find a way to properly cope with it. My own methods include:

Only have Outlook 2007 set up on my main workstation and laptop
Outlook 2007 is configured with all of my work email accounts, and my personal email account
Windows Live Mail (the desktop client) is configured on all of my PCs for my personal email
On the weekends, I rarely if ever open up Outlook - weekends are my time away from my job (sort of...anyone that knows these sites will see me mucking about on the weekends)
I check my personal email quite a bit during the day/night/weekends, but the volume is so low, it's "fun" for me. :-)
On my smartphone, I have push turned off. I have it set to check and sync every four hours. That's mostly because during the day, 90% of the time I'm at my desk with Outlook open
I find that if I need to get some writing some (reviews, columns, etc.) I switch to my laptop and leave Outlook closed, or move to another PC that doesn't have Outlook installed - that allows me to switch "modes" in terms of my focus.
I sometimes wonder if I have ADD. I really hate how our Western culture is so prone to slap a syndrome on every human behaviour, and medicate it all, but I really do have some focusing problems and I can relate to what Brad said about it taking 45 minutes to get "re-focused"My real problem? RSS management! Now THERE'S a nightmare. I'm constantly scared to open Feedemon if it's been more than couple of days...

[ucfgrad93]

I have my desktop set to notify me whenever a message comes in. But like Don't Panic! I check the sender's name and subject line before I decide to stop what I am doing in order to respond. With my iPhone, I have it set to check every hour.

[ctmagnus]

I check it when I want to. Work, personal, it doesn't matter.

[Tim Williamson]

I just keep my email in Gmail and I have my other accounts set to forward to my Gmail address. In addition, I've setup Gmail to reply or send new email as one of my other accounts. Then I setup filters to automagically label my external email with the name of the external account.

On my Dash I have Gmail IMAP setup, but I only have it sync once per day (why doesn't MS give us specific options on the send/receive scheduling????? It was really annoying when I had my phone set to check email every 4 hours and it would notify me in the middle of the night of new email).

I check my personal email whenever I feel like it and "star" things that I need to reply to later.

For RSS, I use Google Reader. I really like the interface (I haven't really used any other RSS readers though) and it's easy to setup and organize feeds.

So using Google, I can log into any PC with internet and have access to all my latest email and RSS feeds.

[stevew]

I have all my email accounts set up in Gmail. I use the Firefox Browser add-0n Gmail Notifier which sits in the windows tray and notifies me when an email comes in with a tone and transparent window with sender and subject line.

I normally use Gmail in Firefox to send and receive email but when I need to send an email with multiple recipients I use Outlook 2007. I also have Outlook 2007 setup with Gmail IMAP with all my accounts so Outlook stays sync'ed with Gmail which is setup with all my accounts. I have my iPhone (oh no the i word) :eek: set up as Gmail IMAP with all my accounts also. I only delete email from within Gmail webmail.

I use Microsoft Exchange on my work PC. I use the same calendar for both business and personal. I keep exchange calendar, notebook calendar, Google calendar, and iphone calendar all sync'ed using Plaxo. Any change made any any of the calendars is sync'ed automatically except the iphone which will sync when docked.

[Brad Adrian]

I like having e-mail that constantly updates because, when I choose to read it, it's current.
I agree, Russ. To me, that's at the heart of a common sentiment in this thread: using e-mail on my own terms.

To me, having push e-mail doesn't make me a slave to e-mail or force me to work longer days, as some people may feel. To the contrary, having an inbox I know is always up to date is what guarantees that can I check my messages when it's convenient to ME and that my worktime is flexible.

To be sure, I've worked in cultures in which it's almost "cool" to act and feel utterly overwhelmed by e-mail. However, it's been my Tilt and pushed e-mail that have made me feel more in control of my inbox than ever before.

[Tony Rylow]

I used to have a WM device with my personal email being pushed. I would check it constantly, even at work. Now I have a blackberry and only get my work email on it (work only allows blackberries) - I stopped having my personal email to go to it. I am more productive at work, and can still check my personal email if I need to via OWA (but never keep it open).

On the subject of getting work email while not there, since I leave earlier from work than any of my coworkers, there are emails that come out that it is in my best interest to be able to respond to that day, rather than wait till the next day (but not necessarily immediately). And without having to pull out my work laptop and vpn in to check.

If something is so important that a quick response is needed then this should be followed up with a phonecall, stopping by at my desk, or at least a page.

[Jon Westfall]

Wow, some great responses are flowing in on this one. I was away from my desk most of the day (ironically fixing an email server, one that TonyR didn't even know was down since his personal mail is on it...:D), and just now have had a chance to read replies!

One theme that ran through the comments was using email on one's own terms. This is actually something that scares me - because even though I use email on my own terms and think I'm happy with my current state, am I really happy reaching for my phone at 5 AM on the way back from the bathroom to see if any new emails came in? I don't know, and not knowing if I'm happy or really miserable doing this is kinda scary. Of course perhaps I'm looking too deep, I am a psychologist* after all...

* research, not clinical!

[frankenbike]

Email is complex for me. I use The Bat! and not Outlook. I have nearly ten different email addresses all filtering in through one account, and they're sorted in multiple folders.

I get a lot of email. I like to keep it separate. I have no sounds to alert me to it. Because I don't use Outlook, I've never had a virus on any computer in 15 years of Windows.

The rule I've established: if you want something immediately, text me. Otherwise, I get to it when I get to it.

My phone is set up the same way with Flexmail 2007. Multiple accounts, multiple return addresses and signatures. I only check it occasionally, and when I leave the mail on, it only checks mail when I want it to.

I went through that phase of always being connected through email. I stopped getting work done. Now I check it when I just need to change pace, and that can take hours.

After you've gotten email forever, the novelty wears off. You stop being a slave to it or you need to go through a 12 step program to ever be productive again once enough people know where to find you.

Push email? I'd only allow that if in my life if my employer required it, and they'd better not require any other kind of work to get done other than reading and answering email.

--
FB

[baralong]

I have my domain at gmail (love google apps for your domain:)) I check that via imap every 5 minutes. I use phone alarm to shut off email alerts at night (10 pm to 7am) but pocket outlook still checks every 5 minutes. Wish I could change the schedule. I've thought of writing a gmail notifier that I can have a custom schedule for and then just use gmail in PIE. Shame that gmail on PIE isn't the best interface.

I wish I could get push email from my employer, but they have a painful policy on that. I've had it in the past and really liked it, particularly they way you have more flexibility on scheduling.

I'm not out of the office as much as I used to be so it's not too big a drama. Except that I'm currently working on distributed project with a 12 hour time difference between teams, and a regular 7:30 am conference call. Doing email triage on my phone would be great then I could know a little in advance of issues and also decide if I need to VPN into my work email before the call.

[JvanEkris]

Hi John,

Great idea to give us some food for thought!
But it wasn't that simple. Some afternoons that I tried this, I did miss pretty important and urgent E-mails, which prompted people to call me, which was more of a distraction than E-mail had been in the first place. Other times I'd spend an afternoon working on a project that was delayed - a delay I didn't hear about until after the work was done because the organizers had E-mailed me about the delay. Still other times I'd miss personal E-mails which I would have liked to reply to quickly. It seemed that turning off notifications to E-mail wasn't a global godsend as much as a &quot;works 50% of the time&quot; measure.I have written a similar article (http://www.modernnomads.info/articles/read.php?article_id=7) a couple of years ago. I see it as inbox-slavery: people enslave us, using our inbox as chains, to do what they want. What you see, also when you do some background reading, that some people consider e-mail as a direct and synchronous medium, while both technicaly and socially it is a (sometimes heavily) delayed and asynchronous medium. So while the sender assumes that you will read your e-mail in an instant, the reciever might not see it, might not share its priority in execution (http://blogs.msdn.com/jasonlan/archive/2008/01/10/asap-what-does-that-really-mean.aspx) or might not agree with it totally. People dump anything in the e-mail anyway, assuming that it will end up on the other side anyway and it will be perfectly understood. To me this equals antisocial behaviour: people consider other people to be their slaves and use an inpersonal medium as a go-between. the sender even gets offended if the message wasn't picked up properly.

Another side effect is that people will really dump anything in an e-mail: if people are too afraid to look the person in the eyes, they will dump it in my e-mail. It is a fire-and-forget strategy with the least resistance: people got rid of the problem, but did not have to deal with the psychological issues that the recieving end has with it. This happened to me personally when my professor decided to terminate his involvement in my PHd research which I was conducting for 5 years: he simply popped an e-mail saying sorry. No response since.

Most cases you end up with this annoying feeling it is NOT YOUR FAULT. Do not feel guilty (you were the psychologist weren't you? ;) ). The carelessness of the sender isn't your problem. He/she should have called and made sure that you were informed and understood the message as well as its priority. The sender did not take care of this kind of "meta-information" surrounding the message, so the consequences are his. Do you feel angry: tell them!

Consider the following scenario: would you feel OK if somebody sent an e-mail saying "the building is on fire and if you will not leave now you die". Wouldn't you blame the sender for making more noise about it, actively alerting people in his environment, like triggering a fire alarm? Wouldn't you blame the guy for the deaths of people that were in meetings? Why don't you expect at least a phone call in some cases from a project manager when a project gets cancelled?Now I could set up elaborate filters to let me know when certain E-mails come in while ignoring others, however that's pretty time consuming given the fact that the vast majority of my contacts have no idea that you can set E-mails to higher or lower importance, and the fact that I work with E-mail from a variety of sources (e.g. academics, students, computer technicians, geeks, journalists, software vendors, friends, etc...). Thus far a perfect solution has eluded me.My boss has a rather good solution. He picks up his e-mail in intervals of 4 hours. At 8:00, 12:00, 16:00 and 20:00. he told everybody that he does that, he even reserved time for it in his calendar. He blames people to use the wrong communication media if they tell him they needed prompt action and didn't get it. If you want action from him, make sure he gets it before the triage begins or you have to wait another slot. And you better make sure you make pretty clear what you want, otherwise you get a Ï don't understand"back. By doing so, you see more directed communication going to him: people make sure he gets clearly written things on time if they need action from him. They start making calls when they need real commitment. That is what communication is about: biderectional exchange of (meta-)information with consideration for the reciever.

Jaap

[JvanEkris]

One theme that ran through the comments was using email on one's own terms. This is actually something that scares me - because even though I use email on my own terms and think I'm happy with my current state, am I really happy reaching for my phone at 5 AM on the way back from the bathroom to see if any new emails came in? I don't know, and not knowing if I'm happy or really miserable doing this is kinda scary. Of course perhaps I'm looking too deep, I am a psychologist* after all...Well,

The scary thing is (besides me trying to stop myself visualising you checking your e-mail naked) is that many people do this. According to research from AOL people check their e-mail (http://media.aoltimewarner.com/media/cb_press_view.cfm?release_num=55254382):
In bed in their pyjamas (23%)
In class (12%)
In a business meeting (8%)
At a Wi-Fi hotspot, like Starbuck's or McDonald's (6%)
At the beach or pool (6%)
In the bathroom (4%)
While driving (4%)
In church (1%)Please repeat after me: "I am not addicted, I can stop checking e-mail any time I want". Good thing is that you are not alone: according to estimates there are about 11 million e-mail addicts (http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Technology/story?id=819049).

Jaap

[martin_ayton]

For me, the key is that how other people perceive my 'connectedness' manages their expectations of my response rates: My (very overworked) IT dept haven't got around to enabling push email or Exchange ActiveSync, and I'm not chasing them to do so. I work in the UK branch office of an organisation based in the US. The trouble is, my US colleagues regularly forget about the 6 hour time difference and if I was connected would expect an instant response. However, they know that I insist on using a non-BB solution (I push the 'eccentric Englander' angle here) which is not currently and am not constantly on-line, so they are usually happy to wait for a response until the next working day. That puts the control back in my hands: I do regularly check my email, and if I see something that merits a quick response then I'll act on it. For the reasons that Brad mentions, I would prefer an always-up-to-date inbox, but not if that changes my colleagues' expectations.

During the desk-based day, Outlook is always on, but that 6 hour difference means it is pretty quiet until around 3pm. And from 3pm, I'm ready to deal with stuff quickly, so I don't get 'phone calls at home.

[emuelle1]

For personal email, I use gmail exclusively. I have Yahoo!, Comcast, and MSN accounts, but mostly those get a trickle of stuff that I never considered important enough to switch to gmail. I have gmail set up for IMAP, which goes to my laptop and Pocket PC. I also use my iPod Touch at home for occasional email and surfing. During the day, I have Flexmail 2007 running and when I'm connected through AT&T, my PPC will vibrate when a new email comes in. Some are unimportant, but I do appreciate this when an email that needs to be addressed comes in.

For work, I'm a contractor from one organization to another. I have Outlook running for one email account, and webmail for the other. The webmail is normally unimportant and I can check it when I feel like it. I try to do so twice a day. I keep up on Outlook because sometimes emails come in that need responses right away. Others get filed according to a pseudo-GTD system.

[Jason Dunn]

To me, having push e-mail doesn't make me a slave to e-mail or force me to work longer days, as some people may feel. To the contrary, having an inbox I know is always up to date is what guarantees that can I check my messages when it's convenient to ME and that my worktime is flexible.

I find that very interesting - every person I've seen with push email always checks it when they hear the bing or feel the buzz. It's hard to have a conversation with someone who's always checking their device, so to me that makes them a slave to their email. If you can resist looking, then you're a better man than most. :D

[wfisher]

There's actually some very solid research to back up the idea that constant minor interruptions (e-mail, IM, calendar reminders, etc) are a huge load for people in the information business - and that they completely toast any idea of trying to be productive during business hours. I know people who come into the office on weekends precisely to "get stuff done" without being interrupted. This is a shame, I think. I want my weekends. I love being able to turn off notifications - I actually keep my visual ones on, and turn off the audible ones. I absolutely hate having sounds interrupt me all of a sudden. It's like telemarketers - if I really wanted what you're selling, I'd be calling YOU.

[Jon Westfall]

My boss has a rather good solution. He picks up his e-mail in intervals of 4 hours. At 8:00, 12:00, 16:00 and 20:00. he told everybody that he does that, he even reserved time for it in his calendar. He blames people to use the wrong communication media if they tell him they needed prompt action and didn't get it.

Thanks for the comments Jaap. I really like that idea from your boss. It would be easy to implement (in a signature line) and would let people establish clear boundaries.

[Jon Westfall]

Well,


The scary thing is (besides me trying to stop myself visualising you checking your e-mail naked)

Lucky for your imagination, I don't sleep naked... often...:D

[Tim Williamson]

Could you guys please quit posting to this thread? I keep getting an email notification that it's been updated, so I have to come here to read the post, therefore, I'm not getting any work done today.

;)

[Jason Dunn]

He picks up his e-mail in intervals of 4 hours. At 8:00, 12:00, 16:00 and 20:00. he told everybody that he does that, he even reserved time for it in his calendar.

That's not a bad approach, although I hate it when people combine that approach with an auto-responder. There's one fellow I know who has a Gmail auto-responder that basically says "I check email twice a day, I'll get back to you later, thanks". And I see this message EVERY SINGLE TIME I email him - it's just idiotic and rude. I now remove his email address when he's on the CC line of another email. He's a nice guy, but this approach of his drives me bonkers. :rolleyes:

[Jason Dunn]

I love being able to turn off notifications - I actually keep my visual ones on, and turn off the audible ones. I absolutely hate having sounds interrupt me all of a sudden. It's like telemarketers - if I really wanted what you're selling, I'd be calling YOU.

Ok, you've inspired me, I've turned off sound notifications for my email, and I've also turned off visual notifications (the Exchange "toast"). I'll see how that works out...

[phoenixag]

Wow, this is such a great thread! I've been a longtime lurker of this site (for years) and check it everyday, but finally I found this discussion so interesting I moved my lazy ass to reply.
Just as an OT note: I love the Thoughts media sites (PPC, Digital Home, etc) and they are my only major resource on WM info. Thanks for all the great articles! You've really inspired some of my buying decisions.

Ok, back on topic.

I've always put a lot of importance in how my email works and gets to me.

My personal email consists of a hosted exchange solution. I also have accounts at Gmail and Gmail for your Domain, plus my work email exchange server, etc.

I have always used a WM device because I feel that they give you more flexibility in managing your email accounts. A blackberry device will route all your mail through its servers, regardless of where its from. Thats just crazy and a very unoptimized approach, IMHO.

Anyway, about 6 months ago, I discovered the 'joy' of Push email on my personal email. I had it set to check for about 18 hours a day. Was loving the feeling of always being up to date and was lured by what I initially thought was email heaven.

Then I realised what a big mistake I had made. I found myself constantly replying to email whether I was in the bathroom, walking, sitting, talking, driving, etc.
I started being woken up by an email notification at 2am at night. My work hours got longer as I was replying to work email from home.

Now, finally, I have switched off Push and I don't give email priority over other matters in my life.

I have it set to check every 2 hours, and have a strict rule about not replying to work email from out of office. I have disabled it to check for any email at night. And any mail that comes is rarely immediately replied to. I usually use a little bit of my lazy time to reply to all the email needing them.

[heliod]

I agree, Russ. To me, that's at the heart of a common sentiment in this thread: using e-mail on my own terms.

To me, having push e-mail doesn't make me a slave to e-mail or force me to work longer days, as some people may feel. To the contrary, having an inbox I know is always up to date is what guarantees that can I check my messages when it's convenient to ME and that my worktime is flexible.

To be sure, I've worked in cultures in which it's almost "cool" to act and feel utterly overwhelmed by e-mail. However, it's been my Tilt and pushed e-mail that have made me feel more in control of my inbox than ever before.

I quite agree with Brad.

For me it is very important to have an up-to-date mailbox with you wherever you go and whenever you need it. I use my Pocket PC for that.

I also constantly check the mailbox to see if there is something urgent, since I have found out that nowadays people expect to be immediately accessible by mail and always aware of what is happening at your mailbox.

This doesn't mean that I am going to act immediately upon the arrival of each mail. Most mail messages are of that type that I just read the title at the list and leave them unread for taking care of them at the office. But I am surely aware, on short notice, when something urgent arrives, and act on that ASAP.

One important thing: Push Mails goes into off-peak manual mode at 19:00. At the end, I also have a life to live with my family.

[Russ Smith]

I find that very interesting - every person I've seen with push email always checks it when they hear the bing or feel the buzz. It's hard to have a conversation with someone who's always checking their device, so to me that makes them a slave to their email. If you can resist looking, then you're a better man than most. :D

Indeed. It took me a while to get my head wrapped around the idea that a ping or buzz _doesn't_ mean "drop everything." The tough work is convincing yourself (to the point of estinguishing the reflex reaction) that notification is just notification. Obviously you also have to use different signals for appointment alarms and incoming e-mail too:).

I also couldn't agree more with the statements to the effect that treating e-mail as IM should be considered inappropriate. Most corporate environments have some sort of communications policy. If there isn't one, you might be forced to suggest it (and probably be roped into being part of the team to write it :)). It should detail which forms of communication should be used for various types of situations (eg: Those that need immediate attention --> Instant Text or Voice Message.) as well as the consequences that occur when using the wrong medium (eg: "Urgent e-mail doesn't get answered because ____ is out of the office and you don't know because you couldn't be troubled to pick up the phone.)

This discussion fall into the broader category of "technology as servant or master;" one which I've put a fair bit of thought into over time. We can use technology to streamline our lives and use our time more efficiently (eg: DVRs that let us watch our shows at a time convenient to us) or we can let the technology force us into patterns of behavior that are neither efficient nor healthy (eg: "Having" to type a blog response because you just received an e-mail notification that someone responded to your response to their response to...). The choice is ours.

[Sven Johannsen]

Fun thread to read. I remember similar threads when WM phones started coming out and access to e-mail via the cell network started being possible. The holy grail was 'push e-mail', you know, like my Blackberry. OMG, you don't do push? You don't get it delivered instantly? How could you survive? Oh, no, setting it to retrieve mail every 15 min, 1 hour, whatever, isn't good enough. So we got it. [Be careful what you wish for?]

I've never had a burning desire for push e-mail. I get it when I have the opportunity. Even my desktop is set to retrieve once an hour. If it is that darned important, call me...that's why I have a phone, both at my desk and a mobile.

[alese]

I have my WM phone set to check the work mail (Exchange) every 2 hours during work hours and then every 4 hours, I have my personal mail (Gmail IMAP) set at 4 hours all the time, but I still have trouble not checking continously my mail - when I'm at my desk Outlook is allways open and while I tried to close it, I just can't do my work without it - the best I can do is switch to calendar or task view...

[Tim Williamson]

What program do you guys use (if any) to turn off notifications in the middle of the night?

[ctmagnus]

What program do you guys use (if any) to turn off notifications in the middle of the night?

Spb Phone Suite (http://software.pocketpcthoughts.com/product.asp?id=11405)

[Tim Williamson]

Spb Phone Suite (http://software.pocketpcthoughts.com/product.asp?id=11405)

No Smartphone version... :( Anyone recommendations for us Smartphone (Standard) users?

[ctmagnus]

No Smartphone version... :( Anyone recommendations for us Smartphone (Standard) users?

Whoops! I forgot you're a Smartphone guy. In that case, I suggest phoneAlarm (http://www.pocketmax.net/phoneAlarm.html).

[MartenDavis]

I am a real estate appraiser that gets some orders from companies who do what is called "broadcasting". They send out an appraisal request to up to 10 different appraisers and the first one that logs in and accepts gets the job. My email client (Eudora Pro) checks email every 1 minute at the fastest.

I went and bought a new phone that has email access and pay for this access service. I now get my email instantly. Problem is that the only way to get the email instantly is to use forwarding to the text area of Verizon.

Is there any way to have an email client open on your phone or Blackberry? I probably should have gotten a Balckberry rather than a touch phone (Samsung Rogue).

Anyone have expertise in this area that can advise me on the best way to be able to have instant email open all the time on my phone, blackberry and desktop?

MartenDavis