During my personal reboot over the last few weeks, I settled on a strategy for keeping e-mail in check.

That is, not distracting me from being present and focused on current activities.

First, I re-committed to the golden rules found at 43 Folders. Such as, organizing e-mail by priority (Inbox, Action, Hold, Respond and Archive).

The most important change though, was dumping my Crackberry and Growl notifications.

They were too distracting, pulling attention from what I was doing. Nothing breaks a chain of thought or the flow of activity faster than an e-mail message.

The golden rule for e-mail is to never expect a reply in less than 24 hours.

If something is urgent, get on the phone to either discuss the issue or alert me to any time constraint your incoming message may have.

I think a lot of internet-centric workers think they are working and being productive just by sitting in front of a computer.

Not so, in my opinion.