Inspired by a great post by Brad Feld about how he structures his day, we decided to ask a number of folks in the Boston startup community a simple question: How do you work? Last week we heard from Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital. Below, hear Tim Rowe’s answer.

How do I work? I guess these days I’m a kind of human switchboard. A lot of what I do is connecting other people. That could translate into being on email ALL the time. But I want to spend as much time as possible in face to face, electronic intermediation free communication. So my day is usually just that: meeting and chatting with people.

Fortunately, CIC is physically convenient to get to, so a lot of my meetings with outside folks end up at CIC. I can go through an entire day without looking at email. This creates an email problem, of course. I have (like most people like me) a HUGE load of inbound communication. Like 200 messages a day just looking at what Gmail categorizes as Priority. I never read anything but what Google thinks is priority, in fact. I have a terrific Aide de Camp, and she and I live together in my inbox. Either of us may see an email when it comes in. The goal is for her to handle as large a fraction as possible.

When the backlog gets big, my brain wakes me up at 5AM (no alarm clock). I creep out of the bedroom trying not to wake Amy, and I plow through it. This usually keeps my head slightly above water. I skip the stuff that isn’t urgent.

Then, every few weeks my aide schedules a “work retreat” day. This is a quiet day, with no meetings. The goal is to catch up on email, and also to do lengthier projects, such as writing projects. I’m on one of those right now, which is why I’m responding to this.

I like to escape to the Atheneum Library in Boston: a beautiful place that harkens back 100 years, and blessedly which bans cell phone use. Here I can usually knock off 100 of the more important emails that have backed up, plus do a few real writing projects.

I never attend work things on weekends. Really never. Weekends are for my kids. If I have to catch up on emails over a weekend, that’s in the 5AM – 7AM window. Does it work? It works OK. Sometimes I think about doing an email moratorium. I wonder if anyone does that.

While I don’t get home every night for dinner, we now have a plan: I’m home for dinner (almost) without fail twice a week, and go out with my wife one other night during the week.  I end up getting to read to my kids about 3 times a week during the week, and usually on the weekends.  Mondays is my night to cook, and I usually do that with help from OfCourseMeals.com (a startup I am helping that delivers all the ingredients + a recipe to your door, so you can cook without the hassles).  Life could be a lot worse.