Is email taking over your life? The 4-step plan for regaining control, getting more done and making more money.

Although email offers numerous advantages, there is one disadvantage of email that directly affects your business and your career. It is the potential for email to take over your work life (and your personal life, for that matter).

A related problem is that email can inundate you with data, creating information overload and stress. What is important? What is not? How do you decipher it all?

If you have direct internet access via an internet service provider, you may receive anywhere from one to 100 junk emails per day. If you work for a corporation that has an intranet (and internal email system), you may be spared the junk email. But, instead, you may receive excessive amounts of internal messages. These can also be considered "junk email" because most of the information is irrelevant to you.

Email is a tool that you must control. You cannot let it control you. Email can take over your work life, if you let it.

1. Create a time management plan for email, where you schedule when you will review email messages.

2. When developing your time management plan, include how much time you will spend responding to email messages.

3. Stick to the time management plan.

4. Do not procrastinate when sending messages because there are times when you may not be able to access your email.

Small Practitioners

Email overload is a particularly difficult problem for small practitioners. Why? This ability of email to monopolize your time is especially disadvantageous if your income (and your firm's profitability) is determined by billable hours. In the case of a small practitioner, the only billable hours are yours. You only have one thing to sell--you and your time.

Job Description

For those working in a corporate environment, you should also track the amount of time you spend on email correspondence. If this time is significant, you will want to add this to your job description or include it on your next performance review as part of your goals or "duties performed."

Kelly J. Watkins, MBA, is an international speaker on customized communication training. She facilitated 17 forums for the A/CPA's Visioning Project and wrote the AICPA CPE course "E-talk: Tips for Using High Tech Communication Tools." Five of her courses are available on AICPA InfoBytes, at www.cpa2biz.com/infobytes She can be reached at www.keepcustomers.com.