The Wall Street Journal has a great article on managing email overload. We’ve all experienced it, expecially these days when Blackberrys, netbooks and smartphones make it next to impossible to get away from it. Here’s an excerpt:

Limit your time with email. Turn off auto-notifications that alert you to incoming email. He also suggests not checking your inbox more than three times per hour. It’s rare that any message is so important that it can’t wait 20 minute to be answered, and if it were so urgent, the sender would try to reach you in other ways, such as calling or texting.

Some of my contacts have begun using automated messages saying that they only check email once a day at specific hours and to not get upset if their email isn’t answered immediately.

The article goes on to note other ways to manage your email and points out that some companies have gone so far as to institute “Email Free Fridays”.  They say this encourages employees to connect with their co-workers and customers in more conventional ways, and that those more personal connections have many rewards. How do you feel about email overload? Do you think email free Fridays are a good idea? Why or why not?