Escaping the e-mail onslaught.

Tips for coping with e-mail overload

Many corporate computer users open their e-mail applications with dread, fearing an unavoidable deluge of company memos and messages, newsletters, and personal notes, along with unsolicited junk e-mail (spam). So threatening to productivity has e-mail become that a new consulting service is developing: advising on how to cope with this negative aspect of the technology.

In his self-published book, Cut the E-mail Glut, one such consultant, Mark Ellwood, offers advice on managing the overload. Ellwood's cardinal rule is to stop treating e-mail as a high priority. Responding immediately to e-mails tends to create a false sense of urgency. Consequently, people will expect you...