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I already do this -- but not by autoresponder. It's simply good email etiquette to let people know that you read their email & will respond within a given time period (if you aren't going to respond within a few hours).

However, it's not possible to automate my responses; my email is too varied for a single time frame to be reasonable. If I had to do this frequently, I'd probably set up some templated responses. But I wouldn't automate it.

On the other side, if I receive an automated response, I'd feel that it's essentially worthless because an automated response means the recipient didn't read the email. Thus, if it it's important, I'll have to follow up -- either with more email or an even more disruptive method. That puts the burden back on me, which I find irritating.

(It's almost as bad as those emails and voice mails which simply say "call me".)

In the end, an automated response doesn't save any time because you still have to go through all the email and decide what to do. Better to handle it appropriately when it comes in. Then you know what explosions are waiting in your email & what you can safely ignore for a few days.

I think a having a set of response templates for various scenarios is a good idea. My idea for the automated email is to set expectations the way an outgoing voicemail message does. Whenever you call to leave a message, you hear the outgoing message that tells you (ideally) something about when you might get a call back. Why not the same for email?

Expectations are wide ranging. Answering email within a few hours would be way too fast for me most of the time. My own policy is to answer within 24 hours. That’s all the automated response is for; it’s not to put people off or delay handling their emails. I wrote more about this in today's post; there are lots of interesting aspects to this issue.