E-mail productivity tips

From this post on 43 Folders:

• Shut off auto-check.  Set the system to check for messages over a longer period of time or manually check for messages.
• Pick off easy ones.  Try to respond in 2 lines or less and 30 seconds or less.
• Write less.  Brevity is king, but do not forget to be polite.
• Cheat.  See the post for more information.
• Be honest.  If you are not going to respond to an e-mail, hide it from yourself.

Here's some Blackberry advice from me:

• Disable your e-mail notification.  Turn off the tone, vibration, etc. and only look at the device when you actually have the time to respond to an e-mail.
• Follow the tips above.  Using a Blackberry should make you want to be brief and to the point.
• Turn off the signature that says the message was sent from a Blackberry.  It is not in your best interest for everyone to know that you have a Blackberry; simply copy over your Outlook signature into the Blackberry redirector.  If you want to be even more sneaky, change your Outlook settings so that all the messages you send from your computer are plain text rather than rich text or HTML.
• If you can access your e-mail via IMAP or POP, consider ditching your Blackberry.  Why?  Because IMAP and POP are both pull methods of retrieving mail, rather than push, meaning you can set that software to only pull at defined intervals.

One more piece of advice on e-mail:

• Never discuss in an e-mail what can be easily accomplished via IM.  If you are on IM and the person you want to communicate with is on IM, use IM.