MARCH 2008

I have been plagued by my time-management demons lately and when I saw this article, it hit home with me so I thought I d share it with you. It was written by Robin Greenspan at Execu-Net. I particularly appreciate her sentiment at the end. Enjoy!

I was swamped with simultaneous writing projects a few weeks ago so ago so I came up with what I thought was a creative way to meet all my deadlines I ignored my email. I turned off the little notification icon in the bottom right corner of my toolbar, and only occasionally scanned my inbox for mission-critical or time-sensitive messages.

When I completed my projects on time, I patted myself on the back and silently praised my innovation. And then I looked at my inbox...733 messages awaiting some kind of attention, whether it was a response or a tap on the delete key.

Even though I set up rules in Outlook to divert messages into organized folders, I was still way behind, and the backlog illuminated the amount of time I spend on email each day. But there are readily available tools that can help inbox management, as Rich Gee, an executive coach in Stamford, Conn. (richgee.com), pointed out. He says that effective managers not only delegate tasks to direct reports but to technology as well. "I set Outlook to download my email every hour, not as messages are received," says Gee, who also praised his new iPhone for its lack of Blackberry-like push email.

It's wise to get email effectively managed before the message downpour intensifies. Technology market research firm The Radicati Group estimates that corporate email users send and receive about 133 messages per day, inching up to 160 in 2009. Corporations are already reacting to the inbox productivity drain a recent article in Fast Company presents three alternative communication models being deployed in large companies.
I haven't fully recovered from my self-imposed email blackout, so if I owe you a response, I appreciate your patience.