Our recent office move has made me think: have we become too over reliant on email? Having been without email for 2 days during our office move last week, I've found myself asking just that question. How is it that we consider ourselves to be in a state of limbo without this 21st century form of communication, and do we really place too much importance on technology and in particular:

• email
• SMS
• MMS
• MSN etc. etc.

When I count the number of tools at my disposal that allow me to communicate electronically with customers, suppliers, colleagues and friends the list becomes mind blowing.

Having returned to over 100 emails in my inbox this morning I soon realised this state of panic to be completely unecessary. How many of those 100 emails were not spam or could not wait a couple of days for a response. Very few, I soon discovered.

How many of us actually send emails now when, a couple of years ago, we would have quite happily called or met with that person directly? Are we losing the art of face to face or even telephone communication?

Like it or not, email communication is here to stay. I for one certainly need to better manage the time I spend on emails and here are my tips for managing emails more successfully:

1. Try to check your email only once every 2-3 hours
2. Use email for sharing relevant information
3. Use email for setting meetings and agendas
4. Ask yourelf - do I really need to send this email or can I make a call instead?
5. Do not use email to communicate bad news, to give personal feedback or to give advice

Managing your email is about Time Management. It's a question of prioritising and developing a system to minimise time wasting.

For details of our Time Management and other personal development training courses then a visit to our site at http://www.tts-uk.com/ is certainly worthwhile.

For further information visit http://www.tts-uk.com/