I'm starting to implement a rough buffer of 48 hours on all my email replies. Unless you are a) a personal friend b) this is your first email to me or c) it needs addressing within 48 hrs.
It seems to be working so far - my productivity has gone up and the pace of email correspondence has slowed (so a 10 email conversation takes a couple of weeks now rather than a few hours).
Several people have commented that they enjoy talking with me for this reason; they don't feel pressured to reply "right now" and enjoy getting a response after some undetermined delay.
I sometimes wonder if the march of technology has had some downsides in terms of "right here right now" thinking.
How are you implementing your buffer? If you just add 48 hours delay to everything, that would probably not work very well. (And you probably aren't?) I guess if you just have a batch email answering session every 48 hours, that should be very good for your productivity.
It also gets people quickly into a mode of understanding that email isn't, and shouldn't be, considered a method of synchronous communication. There isn't much that bugs me more on a daily 8-5 basis than inappropriate [ab]use of email.
It seems to be working so far - my productivity has gone up and the pace of email correspondence has slowed (so a 10 email conversation takes a couple of weeks now rather than a few hours).
Several people have commented that they enjoy talking with me for this reason; they don't feel pressured to reply "right now" and enjoy getting a response after some undetermined delay.
I sometimes wonder if the march of technology has had some downsides in terms of "right here right now" thinking.