Very true with regard to technology. But what we should learn is that people actually started using emails in Twitter-like manner (me – no exception). It means:
* actionable subject lines
* short messages
* perhaps, no Hi, Dear, etc.

I am mostly using emails for tracking actions and to-dos which are either small enough to get into a tracking system, or are urgent enough to make ensure that attention is given to it. Not immediate attention though – if immediate action is required, I would use IM or phone follow up.

For this, if you can:
* put the bigger content into wiki or tracking system. If it’s urgent or important not to forget – send me the link with short follow up
* put a clear subject line – so that when I star the email, I know what I wanted to do about it next time I visit it.
* Be careful with Reply action – change the subject line or start a new thread as the subject changes.

From my experience dealing with huge amount of emails I can say one thing – don’t sit in your email client for 24/7. Get some rules for yourself – check email 3 times a day, or two – believe me, it will make your day much more productive and will allow you to focus on what’s important. Make sure people know when you are checking emails, so they will be aware of the reply time period. If something urgent comes up – there is always IM or phone, so no need to panic that you are going to miss an urgent email. Email meant to be asynchronous – and it works best this way.

When checking email, I follow the pattern of PIFEM (which is actually based on 4 D’s of email management: do, delete, delegate, defer). It’s specifically designed for Outlook, however, can be implemented in any sufficient email client (http://blogs.msdn.com/ianpal/archive/2008/06/03/email-task-and-time-management-with-pifem.aspx#).

Furthermore, Inbox 0 has been my most valuable achievement in the last two years. You really can feel the tension go away when you have 0 emails in your inbox.

Don’t forget the EOM (you can read more here http://lifehacker.com/5028808/how-eom-makes-your-email-more-efficient)

If you think email will take more than 10 minutes to compose, why not call the people involved or discuss it in person – it will save you much of time and stop threads of further emails. Try to keep emails to one paragraph. Great ideas I’ve used for a while now – http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/mastering-the-short-email.html.