I spend a fair amount of time talking about e-mail in my workshops, training sessions, and even this blog. There is a good reason for that: How well you manage your inbox speaks volumes about the control you have over your calendar, and how disciplined you are in your approach to time management. E-mail can [...]

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Nearly every time management and productivity expert will advise you to turn off your e-mail – or at least the notification sound and pop-up window– so you can check your messages at set times during the day, rather than the moment they come in. This is a powerful idea because, on average, it can take [...]

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Few things are worse, from a productivity standpoint, than doing the same tasks over and over. And yet, it isn’t unusual to meet employees who routinely send out the exact same e-mails dozens of times every week – or thousands of times per year. Usually, this is because customers or colleagues tend to ask the [...]

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My reference to self-destructing email does not apply to written errors in judgment on your part blowing up in your face.  Instead my scenario  is more in tune with the Mission: Impossible shows where the tape self-destructs after the agent listens to it. There are two major problems with our current mode of correspondence: Any email communication might be called [...]

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“I have been reading Productivity Today for some time and have found the articles and insight very effective not only for me personally but also in my business.  I have implemented some of the systems and strategies you suggest and have not only increased my efficiency but have also alleviated quite a bit of stress. [...]

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Do you think it more likely that someone would lie in an email than in a handwritten text?  According to a recent study in the Journal of Applied Psychology, email is the more likely medium for people to convey lies.  In trying to analyze this, I recognize that a handwritten note is clearly identified with you.  However email [...]

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It seems media keep pointing to social networking as the place to be, resulting in a decreasing reliance on email.  Since prior complaints about productivity blocks concerned the amount of email with which we have to contend, that might be a positive thing.  But is it true? Do not yet discount the importance of email in our lives.  [...]

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If we all followed a common sense approach to email usage, productivity would jump and consequently so would profits.  The estimated cost due to email mistakes was calculated at $420,000 annually for companies with 100 employees, according to Debra Hamilton in her report, “Top Ten Email Blunders That Cost Companies Money.” As simple as email [...]

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As soon as I finish typing this post, I am heading out to vote in Houston’s run-off primary for District Attorney of Harris County. Our recently resigned D.A., Chuck Rosenthal, was ousted, or outed, when his past years of emails were subpoenaed by defense attorneys in preparation for a trial. Somehow the judge who granted [...]

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Can you imagine a day without email? Suppose the whole company banned managing email once a week on Fridays? For most people, the first response is an immediate objection. In my time management seminars, even bringing up the idea of setting blocks of time each day for processing email vs. letting it interrupt you all [...]

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