Email Survival

I was going to title this post "Email Management", but I realized that I do not find myself even near an "email management" status; I'm simply trying to survive. I would like to know how the community is dealing with their emails these days. I am not doing well.

At my former firm (KDW) when email first began to become prominent, the lawyers were very careful about publishing their email addresses. For example, a client would ask a lawyer's secretary for the boss's email address, and the secretary said "she [or he] would check", and not give it out without permission. An email address was treated something like a cellphone number is now treated (or itself used to be treated).

Now our email addresses are printed on our business cards and stationary. They are better known than our mailing addresses and telephone numbers. They tumble in, not mediated by receptionists, mail room clerks, and secretaries. They come in without any priority except the time of receipt. Nowadays, they come in with a receipt feature, so the sender will know if and when I opened it, and I would not be able to duck it by using "my spam filter ate your email" white lie. (Anyway, we are criticized for not reviewing what our spam filter eats.) Not that I would use such a lie, of course.

I have started using Outlook "rules" to try to herd some of this stuff. I have tried telling people who are not clients to use my home email, and that's very often ignored.

Macon told me that he has (or is thinking about) an automatic response that says something like "I'll get back to you within 24 hours". I am thinking about "I'll get back to you in about 24 weeks".

I would appreciate suggestions and links to advice on managing this mixed blessing of email. I suggest we label such posts "email survival".

Don't send me an email on this. Just post something.