The Disheartening Email Echo

Every so often, I make a good faith attempt to catch up on my email. I take several hours, usually on a weekend, to process the backlog and answer all those hard questions I've been putting aside until later. I feel bad that I can't answer all the email I get, and I try, but I get way behind pretty fast and it takes a few hours of concerted effort to get it through it all. Even then, it's not possible to respond to everyone (which bothers me a lot, but I just can't keep up anymore). But once it's done, it feels really good. Yahoo!!! I got through every unread email!!!

However, it doesn't last very long. Apparently, the people at the other end are better at this than I am and they somehow answer right away. The responses quickly fill up the unread email box and a new, large backlog  of unread email quickly accumulates. So discouraging...