I think it's wonderful that everyone here tries so hard with the emails. But when you get 5 to 20 an hour it's just not possible. Going and adjusting your notification setting is a fantastic idea I'm going to do that myself. It might sound bad to you guys but I look at less then 1/2 of what I get. Unless it's an IM directed to me most aren't relative to where I'm at right know.

I do it manually. I created a WA folder in my email account. If i get too many emails to deal with from WA, I just transfer the latest ones into my WA mail folder. Then, when I have time to respond to them (or at least some of them), I open up the folder where they're all waiting for me in chronological order. Then, every now and then, I delete the older ones that I just never got around to in order to stay current.

Hi Steve, it is so good to help but we all need to realistic. Your first port of call could / should be email notification settings.
Profile pic = drop down = email notification settings.
Have a ponder some of the emails are a double up, so have a think and perhaps a rationalization. This will ease your burden.
Second, A lot, some time for answering some emails throughout the day, spread it out and try and stick to it. I will just do a few some hours later oh it's lunch time boom half the days gone !!!!
Work out of the activity dashboard, a good way to catch up and meet folks that are not on your network, it helps you engage and you can also set the feed just to friends so you will pick up on most of the content that is in the emails there.
On the flip side, handling emails in a timely fashion can also be good training, just a couple of sense, at the end of the day it is a balancing act.

Email is a blessing and a curse. I use Thunderbird which has great filters and other features. I handle 500-1000 emails a day. Half are filtered to spam and deleted in 30 seconds.

Each morning, I scan my emails for names I recognize. They mostly relate to business and I take care of them as necessary. That usually takes less than 30 minutes. I either respond or move the email from my inbox to an action or study folder.

Now I move to the goals I plan to complete for the day. I devote 4 hours to completing goals.

In the evening, I spend an hour further sorting email. If a headline catches my eye, I will read the email and act on it. Everything else gets deleted.

The end result, emails from people I am working with are filtered to an action folder, emails with an eye-catching subject line are acted on and everything else is deleted. Goal and empty inbox daily.

Usually an hour and a half a day is not enough time to handle all my emails so they start to build up. If an email in my inbox is older than 30 days it gets deleted automatically without my even looking at it.

If an email is important I reply to the sender with "confirmed." I tell my friends and colleagues, if they don't get a response, to give me a call and tell me to look for their email.

Hi Steve, I try not to read everything in one sitting. No joke to sit for 3.5 hr reading and response to emails. I salute you for your determination. There are some that I don't quite dig what they wrote and so I ignore or delete them altogether. I don't mean to be rude, it just that we have to sort out our priority and stay true to what we want to achieve for the day. We are human being and have to interact with people around us. That also take up a fair bit of our time. We are here at WA to share and enjoy and not to get stress out without a good cause.
After the first session, later in the day I will do some training and and social networking. Rightly or wrongly, I make it a habit to clear my emails and delete whatever I cannot complete before going to bed and do my nightly meditation routine. [Kelsey]

I hate to say this, but if I fall behind on emails and am overwhelmed in my inbox, I will delete what's there and start over from scratch. I have to, or I feel tied down and just thinking about it takes up so much time, I can rarely get things done.

I do think there's certain people that offer posts that are more helpful to me and so I tend to open these first. It's not that I don't appreciate everyone for being on my friends list and contributing to the community, I just know that I can't get to everyone and still be productive.

When I have extra time, I will open and read those that I missed or put aside for the moment. Even if I only give a like, I want to let them know by my like that I read it.

Now lets' face the facts here. I am turned off by lengthy posts--I don't have the attention span for it nor the time and so I know where those usually come from and I have to avoid it for my own sanity.

I don't even like writing 1500 word content pages because I realize that if my attention span is short, it surely is the same for others. I'd rather them stick around and read what I have to say instead hopping on out of my website.

Sorry for brutal honesty, but I am a Sagittarius and not one to hold back. This is what I meant when responding to another post where I said that sometimes it gets me in trouble. I'll probably lose some people on my list, but if you want to keep me, please make it short and sweet.

This is a long reply, but necessary to answer your question honestly. So sorry. Have a great night!

Here is my suggestion Steve

Start your day with your list of 6 goals that relate specifically to the WA course. Complete each goal and then reward yourself at the end of the day by going through your emails. Use willpower. Once you have finished the course and your affiliate business is up and running and earning income you'll find even more time to communicate and help others.

I hope that helps because I was getting overwhelmed as well and I'm making more progress now.

I have a "WA" filter on my email that I route all WA stuff to. Within that, I have sub folders for Blog Posts, New Questions, Likes, etc.
Even with that, it is impossible to keep up with emails while I'm focusing the few spare hours per day that I have on building my websites. So I just take it on a hit-miss basis.

I wish I knew the answer. I find myself getting more and more swamped with emails every day too, and sometimes I feel like that's all I get done. I don't want to be rude and ignore someone's comments or fail to thank them for following me, but it is so time consuming. I would love to hear some answers.

Steve, I was in your shoes till, I did something about it, I scan through the emails and only answer the ones who I think is helping some if they are stuck with something, and. Most of the time, their answer has already been answered.. But I will will still keep the comment short, yes I know it my ranking will take longer , but at the end of the day, we need to keep focus on our business... Do you agree,