You may be interested to know that my work as a productivity consultant doesn't lead me to teach folks how to do more faster, more faster, until you fall apart. My goal is to help folks identify the things that are profitable and to focus on those tasks as their highest priority, all the time striving to maintain a profitable level of function in each profitable area of activity. In other words, you can have too much of a good thing. Such is often the case with email.

How many times each day do you check email? And how long do you stay at each session? How much of your email in the office is official and how much is personal?

Since our purpose is true to the basics of economics; that everyone works for an incentive, i.e. Your company exists and works for financial profit. Each worker works for the incentives of money and other benefits.

I want to help you accomplish your required tasks, spending less time in the office. That is, for the incentive of a non cash benefit: More time for your personal interests. In the office, this creates an environment for better motivation and increased creativity. Bosses and supervisors are well advised to benefit from this incentive with employees whenever possible. It will benefit your work environment and, in time, your bottom line.

Now, to you, the reader, whether you are the owner, boss or worker, you should get your email habits under control because that action will reclaim much wasted (unprofitable) time and permit you to finish your day's work sooner, without cheating your email duties and without working faster and faster.

The solution is not difficult. First get a good count of how many times a day you check email, and how long you spend each time you check it. This will vary, so simply add up all the minutes you spend handling email on a random day...and note how many times you went to your inbox. After you use my plan for a few days, measure again and compare.

For the day after, set a definite time and promise yourself that you will only check email two times for the whole day. Decide on your times before you leave work today. Twice a day, that's all folks. This will work for most people. If you must have super responsive email for customer service support, you can set up an autoresponder to respond to each customer with a form letter for you, or you can automatically outsource and forward those emails to someone who can answer 95% of them for you, from a list you provide.

Do what you must, but reduce your email checking to twice daily, and set a goal of once per day after about 30 days on the twice a day schedule. If you think it necessary, send all your contacts a nice email explaining that in order to give better service you will be responding to email twice a day and give the hour that you schedule that for. They will then know that if they get an email to you before your 10:00 check, they will get an answer very quickly. They will know that if they miss the 10:00 check, they will get a response between 3:00 and 4:00 P.M.

Prepare your mind before you go to your inbox. Determine to aggressively delete any obvious spam on sight. Delete them almost without thinking, before you get tempted and distracted. Next, open each message that pertains to work and either answer it or flag it for research, investigation and follow-up. Do all you can to respond to each one as you open them, but you may have to put some in the pending mode, if research is required. If you have help, you may want to have a helper find out why Mrs. Jones' widget was not properly packed and send her a letter of apology and a refund, for example. Any emails that are personal should be ignored until all your work is done for the day. I use separate email addresses for different categories of correspondence and open each inbox only at its appropriate time.

I know this sounds rigid. That's because it is serious business. If you are among the majority of who just float along whichever way the current flows, you don't know where you'll end up. If, however, you are among those who want to rise to the top ahead of your peers, this kind of personal management of your work habits, with a view towards productivity will enable you to set a direct course to a definite destination, and will make it possible for you to arrive successfully. You can do it. I know you can. You just need to decide to navigate towards success, and then take the first step. The next step, and the next after that will be more natural.