More importantly, how quickly do you respond to messages in your inbox? Do you try to get back to people as soon as possible, or do you let messages linger for days or even weeks? Most of the advice I’ve read on the subject suggests trying to respond as quickly as possible, because it fosters a reputation of reliability, and paints you as someone who is on top of things. I tried that when I was working as a project manager, and it definitely succeeded on both counts. Also, because I can be a bit obsessive, sticking to the instant-reply strategy justified living in my inbox and keeping it empty.

Of course, eventually I learned that there are downsides to this strategy. I found that I was spending all of my time monitoring my inbox and batting away incoming messages like tennis balls shooting at me from machines on the other side of the net. Getting each ball over the net was more important to me than really considering my responses and sending the bestresponse back that I could. And while I was busy bouncing away the incoming messages, not much real work was getting done. I’d go home for the day feeling exhausted, but not able to think of anything productive that I accomplished during the day.

What was even worse was the fact that the incoming messages seemed to be getting more and more frequent – coming at me faster and faster. I was training people that I was someone who delivered fast responses, so they quickly learned that if they wanted something done, they should ask me first. A lot of the email I was getting was only marginally related to my job, and yet I was fielding all sorts of requests for my time because I’d cultivated a reputation as someone who was reliable and quick to respond. But my actual responsibilities were suffering, and my stress level was through the roof.

It’s fine to respond quickly if the answer is top of mind and you don’t need time to consider it. But don’t be afraid to sit on an email for a day or two if you need to decide the best way to respond. In many companies email has become almost real-time, and people expect you to have read and considered messages that they sent you only minutes before. That culture is toxic. Your instant messaging client doesn’t have an inbox because it’s a real-time tool. Email does, because it’s intended as a place for messages to gather while you’re not actually “doing email”. In other words, email was never intended to be real-time. It’s not unreasonable to let people learn that while you might not always answer immediately, your answers will be considered and of a high quality.

Another benefit of sitting on a message for a little while before replying is that the sender may actually be able to solve their own problem if they give it a bit more time. Or another recipient who is better suited might respond. This isn’t to say that you should be a jerk about it, but if you’re overwhelmed, remember that you control your time, not the people who send you email.

There’s definitely a balance to strike here, since you want to be a reliable correspondent, while protecting your time to give yourself the room to actually think, and do real work.

It’s easy to forget this, and I often do, but doing email isn’t doing work.