As my email is on my phone, I almost never proactively check my mail - instead I check it in a reactive manner. All my email addresses forward to a central email which is synced to my phone. Once email arrives, I check its contents and either:
Additionally, I have a pebble smartwatch which notifies me when mail arrives so I can keep my phone on silent, and I use the awear pebble app so I can star, mark read and archive emails without looking at my phone.
I also use a custom email domain with google business apps (basically gmail but with a custom email address). I have set it up so that I can put anything before the @ in the email address, and it will still reach my inbox. That way, everything I sign up to can have a personalised email address e.g facebook@mydomain.com or massdrop@mydomain.com. If I start getting spam from somewhere, I can often figure out where my email address leaked from, and forward everything to spam from that address.
everything I sign up to can have a personalised email address e.g facebook@mydomain.com or massdrop@mydomain.com
You can also do this with GMail - if your address is bob@gmail.com, bob+anystring@gmail.com and bob+anystring2@gmail.com will reach you (ie you can put anything after +).
How frequently do you think you *should* check email? You can also say how frequently you do in comments.
Personally I'm sold on thinking you should check it around once a day, not necessarily without fail. That increases focus on both email and non-email, and minimises getting sucked into distractions. But some people I know disagree. Some believe in getting notifications whenever a new email comes in.
For anyone who'd like to check email less often and uses GMail, I recommend using http://inboxpause.com/ and this full screen compose link: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&shva=1
Edited to add: I'd recommend everyone at least try checking only once a day, at least for a few days, to see if you find it more productive and/or relaxing. That'd be a big enough win to make experimenting worthwhile.