How do you manage emails?

[Ineedcoffeenow]

I find that dealing with emails takes up far too much of the day. A colleague has a notice within their email signature saying they check emails for one hour a day/at the end of day. They will respond within 3 days and don’t answer emails at the weekend. I’m tempted to steal it!

How do you manage emails so they don’t take over your day?

I’ve seen signatures that say “This is a calm inbox and is checked at the end of each day” I’d much rather be just managing as and when I’ve got a moment. I’ve normally run out of energy by the end of each day

2 minute rule - if it’s something that needs a quick reply do it then and there. Else tag the email according to urgency and diarise. Not perfect but it mostly works

I agree about emails, they are the devil.
One way I've found to make emails more manageable is to turn more email threads into meetings. So instead of 5-6 emails forward and back, a 15 or 20-minute chat or even a quick Teams message exchange can often get everything done faster and with less stress. I get fewer emails, or at least fewer emails about important tasks.

I stopped reading the 'here is what went in your spam trap' emails.

They are literally 25% of all emails I receive (!!)

I tend to ruthlessly delete anything I can quickly forget about, the circulars and going-away-cards etc.

I spend a lot of time documenting terse updates to projects and will use those updated notes to have an excuse to file emails away/delete.

I block out time for specific tasks and just do the task & ignore any emails that arrive while I'm doing my blocked-out-time-task.

i use outlook rules to filter out the junk, and to categorise, and quick steps to file into subfolders.
My group is told to only use our teams channels
I diarise the "big task emails"
i batch review invitations and cold calls from prospective students in a subfolder that i only look at once a week.
I quick scan everything and flag the important ones, and either let the rest sink in the depth of the inbox, or file/delete.
When i ve dealt with an important email, i file it to keep as slim an inbox as possible
anything i reply to which is pending a reply goes to a "to be followed up" folder which i check once a week.

Exactly as Marasme except for the once a week to be followed up folder which is a great addition I will take up.

I'm new to this. How many emails do you all get daily / weekly? I'm moving from another career and had so many emails I couldn't keep up with them. I don't know what to expect

It varies an awful lot, depending on time of year, and your volume of teaching and admin role(s). The most I had was 150 a day - on a regular basis when I was a HoD. Other times, down to 30 a day.

i run PPIE type projects and citizen science projects that are multi-sites, plus 1 uni committee and also have 2 big external roles - so between 100 and 250 a day, depending on what s going on.

i often don't rush to answer, on the off chance someone else will, and have a filter to flag anything where i m just cced - which gets automatically deprioritised

Six months ago, in the height of term-time and as a HoD: between 80 and 100 per day.
Now in summer and recently demitted as HoD: 8 or 10 😀

I find it extremely unprofessional for someone to be so dismissive about replying to emails. Email is one of the most accepted modes of communication in a business setting and it’s poor time and work management not to at least reply and manage the sender’s expectations. Your colleague’s email signature would make me think a) they think they are more important than anyone else and b) they are lazy and not good at managing their workload. It takes seconds to reply saying ‘I’ll get back to you when I’ve had a moment to deal with this’, or even just to delete junk messages cluttering your inbox. Or delegate to someone else if you’re that senior and ‘important’.

It takes seconds to reply saying ‘I’ll get back to you when I’ve had a moment to deal with this’

But this is just adding to unnecessary email traffic? A 2-3 day turnaround to reply to something that is not marked urgent is not unreasonable. If it requires a quicker response then email is not the correct channel when there’s Teams and telephones.

This idea that we’re all instantly available to respond to the most insignificant of messages just because they’re in an email format inhibits other work, deep work, from getting done.

I think it depends on whether you want to actually do your job or just reply to emails, as often it can be a choice between the two.

It also in my view is a poor communication culture where email is the default. It is an absolute time suck, and frankly 80% of internal emails don’t need to be sent - an awful lot of them are arse covering, which is much more unprofessional.

The more senior you are the easier it is to step out of the email noise and set the tone by working differently. It doesn’t mean ignoring work, but it does mean you can deal with any real work raised while sidestepping the irrelevant.

We're not in a "business setting". We teach and research. Email has to fit in around that, otherwise the job doesn't get done.

Hear, hear.
A lot of university email traffic (in my experience) is people copying you into things, trivial things, things that if you leave them for a while cease to matter. Also a hell of a lot of notices from central services telling you they are fixing a footpath or testing the lights in a building you never even go in. In short, a lot of it is just noise that can safely be ignored. Not all of it, of course, some is important and needs action, but a lot.

this is nonsense - 1) email is antiquated - teams, slack or... picking up the phone is often more efficient and effective, it s ok for some stuff, but not "conversation" 2) snoozing people promising "i ll reply soon" is just compounding what is a massive time sink.

there are still too many people who think that sending "thank you" or "i ll reply to you soon" email is a welcomed part of communication. It s clutter - needless clutter.

replied too fast and glad to see that PP also agree. For me, emails can go to room 101

Are you an academic @SaulHudsonDavidJones ? Are you engaged in research and teaching?

If not, you probably don't understand how academics work - your post suggests that you're not engaged with students, for example.

To be honest, I've just stopped replying to a lot of emails 😬

If an email doesn't have a clear task, question or objective for me specifically then I don't reply. If it's important, the person will generally follow up with a clearer email that has an actual point to it. Or it'll fall off the radar so obviously wasn't that important anyway.

I've also made myself less available. I'm slower at responding to emails from colleagues than when I first started and was a keen bean. It means I've moved out of a kind of "default person" role (I.e. when they're after people to sit on panels or mark late work at the last minute). This has reduced email traffic and workload (win win).

One of my new year resolutions was to check emails only once per day. I didn't manage it in 2025 but might give it a go next year.

I've become terrible with emails to the point where I need to make a fresh start this year, archive the lot and start with a new system.

How do people feel about using Microsoft "reactions" ?
In theory, I like a thumbs up as an "acknowledged" gesture, and a heart as a thank You. But am not sure the reactions usually get noticed at all or interpreted as I meant them.

I use the thumbs up. I think it is useful to avoid unnecessary traffic. Or if there is an announcement I might use the little celebration reaction rather than a 'reply all' token well done email.

Yes it seems churlish not to thank or acknowledge but it does just create more traffic.

I really like reactions.

They tell people you've opened/read their emails without clogging up inboxes.