Email Option 1: Deleting

The fastest way to deal with an email is to delete it. Obviously it’s easy to do this with any spam that gets through. If too much is getting through, adjust or replace your spam filter. However, there are a lot of emails that seem like they might be interesting. These become a way of killing time instead of doing the 20% of your most valuable tasks. Here are two big categories of email that are ripe for zapping:

• Jokes, weird news items, cartoons, and so on. You have a choice: You can zap, or you can move to a “free-time” folder. You can also send an email back to the sender saying something along the lines of, “Although the jokes and cartoons you send me are good for a chuckle, I’m having trouble coping with the overload in my email inbox, so please don’t send any more. I do appreciate the thought, and I’m sure you’ll understand.”

• Copies of emails sent to someone else, often marked “for your information.” If you keep getting information you don’t really need, these are just as bad as spam. Again, you have to train the people sending you these, with a gentle message like, “I appreciate your desire to keep me in the loop on this, but you don’t actually need to copy me on these messages.” Important: If there is a circumstance under which you do want to be notified, then you can add a qualifier, such as, “unless the project falls behind schedule,” or “unless you need my direct participation.”