Drowning in email

Taking a day off is always such a welcome break - but it is only when you get back in the office and the emails hit you that you begin to wonder if it was such a good idea in the first place!

I can't wait for my week off later this month - but I know I won't be able to resist checking emails during the week, purely because I can't spend my first two days back the following week ploughing through emails.

When I first started my journalism career (11 years ago) - emails were unheard of as a form of communication, it was purely letters and phone calls only. The fax machine was the lifeblood of the office (scary thought). It is only now when I stop and add up how many hours of the day are spent answering emails and trying to get to the end of the list - that I realise it is pracically impossible to keep on top of them.

How does everyone else cope? Please let me know if there is a secret to it. Pressing the delete button is not the answer I am looking for either.