How often do you check your e-mail?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m curious to know other people’s approach to this.

I’m self-employed and work at home, so I have a well-appointed office and keep my main computer in tip-top shape. It is on most of the time. E-mail is my primary means of communicating with clients, and since I’m sitting here most of the day while I work, I check my e-mail dozens of times a day – either because I’m expecting a reply from someone or just because I’m bored or taking a break. I also subscribe to several busy mailing lists. So it behooves me to check my e-mail often.

When I’m not “on the clock,” I still check my e-mail often. When I get home from an errand, I check the answering machine and check e-mail. Just habit, I suppose, carried over from the workday – did any information come in while I was gone?

When I’m on vacation (away from home), I let my clients know that I’ll be out of the office but checking e-mail once a day or so, if it will be possible. Usually we just go to visit friends, so I use their computer, or I take my laptop along.

The reason I am asking this question is that something that befuddles me has happened yet again. About a week ago I sent an e-mail message to some friends that asked for a reply (it was an offer of free tickets; “let me know ASAP whether you want them or not so I can either get them to you or offer them to someone else”). No answer yet.

Now I understand that they may be on vacation. Maybe they are in the middle of some life crisis, or just busy with life. Their computer may be in the shop. Maybe they’re not tethered to their computer like I am to mine. If it’s that important, I could just call them. (Probably will, tonight – the event is a week away.)

But I’m willing to bet – because it happens a lot, and with other people as well – that they just haven’t bothered to check their e-mail all week.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHY NOT?

E-mail is great for communication – instantaneous, but not intrusive like a phone ringing. My thinking is that, if you’re going to set yourself up with e-mail, checking for messages once every day or so seems reasonable for the personal user (assuming you have your own computer and don’t have to go to the library or some such). It just seems weird to me to have an e-mail account that you distribute to friends and family as a means to contact you, and then let it fill up with unanswered messages. (Even my mom, the big Luddite, checks her e-mail on her little handheld Pocketmail doohickey daily.) I know that they are not at my beck and call, but the condradiction of instant communication that languishes ignored on a server for days and weeks just seems weird to me. It seems analogous to having an answering machine, but either not checking messages at all, or checking them but not returning calls that needed a response.

But I’m not the only person in the world. So I’d like to hear some other perspectives – probably skewed, since Dopers are likely more computer-oriented than the general population. What’s your take on checking e-mail? How often do you check? Do you use e-mail strictly for personal communication, or for work too? Does that make a difference? Do you have your own computer at home, and does that make a difference?

2

I’ve never understood people who don’t check their e-mail.

I check it at least twice everyday. But I have the Yahoo! toolbar, so it tells me when messages arrive and I hurry and check them.

3

At work I receive notifies for incoming e-mails to my work account and I check straight away. I usually check both of my personal accounts (Hotmail and Optus) each day as well. At home I check my personal accounts maybe 2 or 3 times a day. I can’t remember when I last went more than say 2 days without checking my e-mails even on holidays.

I have two friends who live about two hours drive from my place. Both of them, when they visit, will log on and check their e-mail within an hour of arriving at my place.

4

My computer is set up to check for new mail every 15 minutes. If I’m around my computer, I glance over to see if any new messages have arrived. I don’t necessarily reply to messages as soon as I see them, but my general rule of thumb is that if a reply will take less than 60 seconds, I do it right then. Otherwise, I do it when I have time.

5

I’m currently giddily crushing on someone almost as verbal as me, so I came in prepared to say “not more than every ten minutes or so – I do have some self-respect.”

Heh.

6

During the workday, I check it continually. After hours and on weekends, no less than once every six hours or so, unless I’m on a trip or something.

The behavior you describe – “Oh, I just haven’t bothered to check my e-mail in over a week” – drives me crazy, too. My feeling is, if you have an e-mail account, you should check it at least once a day or so. Once a week is the absolute rock-bottom bare minimum. If you don’t want to have an e-mail account, fine. If your friends know you don’t have e-mail access, they’ll make an effort to contact you in other ways (e.g., the phone). But if someone has an e-mail address and gives it out as a way for people to contact them, I think it’s then their responsibility to check it on a regular basis. Otherwise, it’s kind of like buying an answering machine for your phone and then never checking the messages on it.

7

At home I have DSL, so I always have Outlook and Mailwasher open. I currently have Mailwasher set to check every 10 minutes (default upon installation), but I might set it to something less frequent, like 30 minutes. I get several legitimate emails since I run a web site, but I also get a lot of spam (don’t we all? :mad: ) I wish Mailwasher had a way of making a different sound (I’d use a buzzer type sound) to let me know if there is only spam in the new mail; that way I won’t bother to go check and see what’s come in until something good has arrived, or I’ll know right away that it’s no good before checking to see what’s come in and then getting pissed off.

8

I use the full version of Mozilla (which contains their Thunderbird mail client). When I get new mail, a little box slides up in the lower right hand corner. I “borrowed” AOL’s “You’ve Got Mail” .wav to replace the tone that came with Mozilla.

9

I usually check my email every half an hour or so at work, at least once after I get home from work and once or twice a day on the weekends.
The longest I have ever gone without looking at my email was three weeks-I was gone doing field work out in the boonies of NW Utah with no access to internet. My husband would check on it at least a few times a week to clean out the spam and see if there was anything urgent. If there was some urgent type of message, I told him to respond to it as best he could or wait until he talked to me to see how to respond (I called every couple of days when I could get a cell signal).

10

I check mine many times a day, although I’m starting to not check it quite as frequently. For a long time, I was on a pattern that as soon as I got up, I’d turn my computer on and let it boot up while I went to the bathroom, and then when I came back, I’d check my email. One morning I turned it on, but then it dawned on me that I really didn’t care if anyone had emailed me in the last day and I didn’t have to check right that minute. Still though, it’s several times a day.

When I lived in the dorms, I had Netscape Messenger set to automatically check my email every 5 or 10 minutes or something. That only lasted a day before I got the following email:

*Our records indicate that on March 28, your OSU network username
checked for e-mail 710 times. Did you know that frequent checking of mail
puts an unusual strain on an already much utilized resource–the postbox mail
system–and can actually delay the delivery of your messages?

The fact is that whenever you are in the process of checking your postbox
for new e-mail messages, incoming e-mail cannot be delivered to your mail
spool. Instead, the system queues the mail and tries to deliver it again in
another hour. If you are again checking for mail while the system is trying
to deliver it, the incoming mail is queued again and delayed yet another
hour.

For these reasons, UTS is sending you this note to request and strongly
recommend that you check for e-mail no more frequently than once an hour.
We thank you in advance for your cooperation.*

Heh.

11

Usually several times a day, though from time to time there’s a day I just don’t feel like it at all.

12

Every 15 minutes, 24 x 7 except for the time spent in transit from home to work & vice versa. PowerBook, DSL at home, slice of a T1 at work.

13

Unless it’s for work, email shouldn’t be considered as a critical form of communication. I can go for days, or weeks sometimes without checking it. If somebody wants to know whether I want tickets to a concert or not, they can call me. Otherwise, I’ll get to your jokes and spam at a later time.

I will however check it as if I had OCD after placing an order, or working with eBay, or if I’m already expecting something. The OP should’ve called as a follow up to his email about the tickets.

14

At work, I have Outlook set to real-time mode, so I get email pretty much as soon as it hits the Exchange server. So the application is checking constantly. I, on the other hand, check reflexively every 5 minutes or so if I am at my desk, and email is the first thing I check when I get back to my desk after a meeting.

I have yet to configure my phone to notify me of emails to my work account, but I have thought of it. I live in email – Outlook is by far my most important application.

At home, I used to check all the time. Since I am so engaged with email at work, though, I have really throttled back. Outlook is configured to check every 15 minutes when active, and I usually turn it on as soon as I get home and leave it on (I have cable broadband, so I care nothing for connect time charges). I’ll turn it off if I’m playing a game so I don’t get the notification interrupting my game time.

Oh, and I use a Strong Bad sound clip for my notification sound. :slight_smile:

15

Same with me. I don’t really check it as much as I sit there doing my thing and maximize my Outlook window if Strong Bad tells me there’s something to see.

16

i pretty much know the e-mail habits of those in my social circle, who checks mail when, and the best times to reach people.

i.e.: i check my e-mail constantly during the work day and where possible, i have pop-up/desktop notifications set. however, i dont answer my mobile when im at work. and i dont check email at home and on weekends.

17

At the office, the e-mail is on all day. At home, most evenings I check it at least twice, when I arrive home and again before I go to sleep.

18

I have three accounts that I check at least once a day. The first account is my ISP account, and I generally have OE running whenever I’m online, so that checks for email once every X minutes automatically. The second account is my poor Yahoo! account…which I use for general email correspondence w/friends, but it’s now fairly besieged with spam :frowning: :mad:. The third is my Hotmail account, which I check whenever I check the Yahoo! account, and I usually have Trillian connected to my MSN Messenger account, so I’m notified whenever I get a new email there.

19

At work the server pushes the email to my desk instantly and I get the typical pop-up reminder with from:, subject:, and the first couple of body lines. I’ll usually just let the mail sit and deal with it at the next breakpoint in my normal workflow, which is usuallly within 30 minutes.

At home I check it when I first get up in the AM, mostly to read the NYTimes and a couple of other daily newsletters that arrive overnight. Then I get ready for my day. Only quickie replies get composed and sent in the AM.

I also check it when I first get home from work, before I change clothes and mentally transition from work mode to home mode. I try to get everything that needs a reply dealt with so it doesn’t start piling up into tomorrow and …

On weekends I do the AM check only & kill any accumulated backlog.

20

I have a ritual where I get up in the morning, turn on my computer then go into the kitchen and make coffee. Then I go brush my teeth and perform my morning ablutions. When I finish that I get a cup of coffee and sit down to check my email. Since I’m on several lists, I read my email while I’m drinking my coffee. So the answer to your question is once a day.

If I’m on vacation, I usually don’t check at all. I’ll put myself on “nomail” with my lists so that I don’t come back to thousands of emails.