You see it everywhere, that constant checking of email. In the office, email is often allowed to intrude at any time throughout the day and is given priority over the current task. Outside the office space, those PDAs, like the Blackberry and Treo, pop up at meetings, lunches, soccer games, and even the dinner table. The purported reason is to stay in touch, answer questions, and solve problems immediately. That certainly sounds positive on the surface.

Yet the constant, immediate response to email can subtly affect personal relationships. Children are now complaining that their parents spend too much time focused on those little boxes, and the kids are feeling neglected. They struggle to gain their parents’ attention, even during “quality time.” Some families have had to institute rules curbing parental use of the “Crackberry” and its cousins.

Just as many parents have found, in placing limits on children, the subjects of limitations can often be caught breaking the rules. If you find yourself sneaking into the home office to take a quick look at email during the evening, or hiding the Blackberry in the bathroom and then making frequent visits to that facility, you may be personifying addictive tendencies.

When you begin to identify with any of these situations, start to make some changes by determining what should be off-limits. Examples of good places to begin curbing your ties to email include:

• during meals
• while driving
• in certain rooms, like the bedroom
• between dinner and the children’s bedtimes

At the office, set up blocks of time specifically to manage email messages. By focusing on one type of activity at a time, you will greatly improve your time management skills and productivity throughout the day.