1. You're in charge of your own in-box. Don't let it manage you. If a stranger or a fellow employee sends you a message, you're not required to read it right now-if ever. Messages from your boss are a different story, but they usually aren't as numerous as those from peers and subordinates.
2. If you don't know how to type, learn. "People think they're too old to learn to type," says GSA's Kenn Kojima. But if you painfully hunt and peck as you deal with your e-mail, you lose the benefits. Your local computer store sells PC software that teaches typing.
3. Decide what communication channel or channels you prefer, and make your preferences known. If you're a voice-mail person, for example, ask your staff to use the phone instead of e-mail. If you're getting lots of memos, faxes, voice mail and e-mail, the variety of formats will make the load seem even more troublesome.
4. Don't let it pile up. Make quick decisions about what to save, what to discard immediately and what to pass along to someone else. Making a wrong decision that can't be reversed or amended is rare.
5. Investigate filters and folders for managing your e-mail. Many of these tools are not as useful as they should be, but they're better than nothing.
6. As a manager, keep your unit's mission in mind when deciding which messages to read or respond to. Lack of response to a seemingly trivial query or request could keep dozens of employees sitting at their desks, awaiting your answer. Inertia is the organization's natural state, says Stanley Morris of the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. Fight it.
7. Be careful about adding your name to electronic mailing lists or responding to World Wide Web pages with your e-mail address. The more you distribute your address, the more vulnerable you are to junk mail traffic that wastes your time.
8. See whether your work group can agree on some simple labels for common e-mail genres. For example, one office has an unwritten rule that messages requesting assistance with a work problem (how to use software tools, or where to obtain a piece of equipment) should be prefaced in the subject line with the phrase "Help Wanted." If you have no time to help, you know you can skip over that message.
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