The Government has abandoned its plans to push the clocks back an extra hour in the summertime (who’d have thought?). But while that idea did come across as a tad extreme, many people are so pushed for time that they could have done with the extra hour.

One of the biggest drains on our time, particularly at work, is email. For many of us, email overload means we lose precious time each day – in fact, for some, it can be as much as one hour a day, which builds up to over half a day a week. So we asked Dr Monica Seeley for her ten top tips on preventing email from taking over your life – and improving personal productivity and work-life balance in the process.

1. Take control of your time
Don’t be a slave to the new email: ask how often it’s truly a life or death situation if an email isn’t answered immediately. The faster you respond, the faster the sender will expect a response. Manage people’s expectations by switching off all those new message alerts.

2. Avoid constantly dipping in and out of your inbox
Every time you let an interruption distract you (like a new email), it adds about 15 minutes to the time you needed to complete the original task. Focus on the task in hand, even if it’s only for twenty minutes – then take a break to deal with your email, and go back the real job.

3. Don’t waste time going back and forth over emails
Handle each email once, and follow the four Ds principle – deal, delete, Delegate or defer action.

4. Make sure important emails are answered and not overlooked
Establish a reliable way to track emails you still need to take action on - for example, by using flags or create tasks, etc.

5. Reduce the volume of email you receive
Prioritise your email using the Pareto Principle. Identify the 20% of emails which provide 80% of what you need. Then be ruthless about the 80% of low-priority emails. Remove yourself from as many lists as possible, and use rules to folder less important emails as they arrive.

6. Use colour to highlight emails from important people
This helps you spot important emails more easily.

7. Do your email housekeeping regularly
Delete old emails, clear out the sent items and save important attachments. Small inboxes are more stable, easier to manage and help you keep within mailbox limits.

8. Attach first, then write the email
This save pointless rounds of email ping-pong.

9. Write clear, precise subject lines
Include the date by which a response is needed and if no reply is necessary, say so either in the email or the subject line with the abbreviation NRE (No Response Expected). This, too, reduces email traffic.

10. Learn to use Shortcut keys
For example, Ctrl+N for new email; Ctrl+2 to switch to calendar, etc. It saves time hunting through menus.

- Dr Monica Seeley is the founder of Mesmo Consultancy and the author of Brilliant Email. She also tweets email tips as @emaildoctor.

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