Let's create some more time in this new year for other work, and streamline your business email management.

Step One: Check email only as frequently as your job and work culture demands:

For example, if you run a technology help desk, you need to check email very frequently. If you are a technical writer, you are far less likely to receive urgent messages. Checking email is disruptive; let your work plan drive your day, not email.

Make a conscious decision about how often to check your messages, and have planned time set aside to read/respond/write email. Don't peck away at it randomly throughout the day or it will take over; plan your engagement.

Step Two: Watch what gets to your inbox:

• Use filters or rules to auto-redirect newsletters, daily quotes, stock notifications, church bulletins, company updates, etc. to appropriate folders. Read these messages during time you've previously set aside for this. Don't let them interrupt your work flow and sway your focus.
• Unsubscribe from any newsletters, team lists or marketing messages you no longer read. Mark them as junk if there is no unsubscribe link.

Step Three: The two minute rule. Keep your inbox uncluttered:

If you can respond to an email in less than two minutes, respond to it and move it out. If you cannot, don't let it linger in your inbox. Drag or label emails that require more than a quick response to:

1. Action - those messages that you need to take action upon.
2. Follow up - those messages that you are monitoring for resolution, or you want to save while the activity is moving, or something to check back on later. (These are the messages that most frequently clog up your inbox, enervating you each time you check email.) If necessary, place a reminder of issues in your "to-do" list.
3. Reply - those messages that require a response from you, but which take more than two minutes to write.

Or, file it in a topic folder if it needs no response, but needs to be saved.

Use your planned, allocated email time to address the messages you moved to Action, Follow Up or Reply. You plan the time; don't let the email onslaught drive it. You manage email.

Be a Good Email Citizen yourself:

Choose your recipients wisely:

• Only place recipients in the "To" line who need to take specific action on your email.
• Think carefully if a recipient should be notified in the cc line, and expect that this means no response is necessary as this is used for notification only.
• Use "reply to all" very sparingly. Before you click "send," check your recipient list for accuracy and appropriateness.
  

Be polite:

• Change the subject line of a forwarded message, if necessary.
• Summarize a long string of messages before forwarding.
• If an attachment is included, refer your reader to the location in the document that is relevant. For example, "You will find the demo chart on page six of this attached document."
• Be thoughtful of large attachments, especially since so many recipients now receive email on their mobile devices.