Oh, man, this is SO hard. I get smoked with this question every time I speak, and it’s a great question.

Depending on how often you’re expected to respond, one suggestion would be to let these messages accumulate in a folder that you check every day or so (whatever works for you) then pass through a whole bunch of the conversation at once.

My main suggestion — unless you absolutely have to, don’t let every new bit of the conversation interrupt you from other work, you know? That’s a killer.

I’ve struggled with this too.

I started off archiving them, but now I’m putting them into an email tickler file that I check as part of the weekly review.

The important thing is that any related tasks go into your task list, so that they aren’t ‘unprocessed’ or ‘procrastination’ files, but simply conversations-in-progress. Only the latest from each conversation should be in the file, archive the previous one, so that it doesn’t get overloaded.

I’m thinking about incorporating some kind of a contact group/note into the weekly review somehow that includes contacts that I need to keep in touch with - long-distance, online friends who I only email occasionally - so that they don’t fall off the orbat.

Helen