If a barrage of incoming email is sending your executive time management haywire it might be worth trying some new techniques.

Managers in senior roles, with numerous staff communicating daily, are finding creative solutions to the email explosion.

You may need to take the lead and demonstrate the proper place for email in your organization.

• Tell staff and colleagues that you are trying to manage email overload and raise their awareness of the problem, they may think twice about their mail to you!
• Only check e-mail at pre-determined intervals each day. Rather than allowing a constant flow of email alerts, check two or three times a day manually instead.
• Make a list on paper of the actions and tasks requested of you by the emails. If you need to keep the information within the email file it away after you have made a list of the tasks.
• Question the sender if you are copied in to irrelevant email. Sometimes it’s a habit for colleagues to include everyone in the message, even to the extent of forwarding unnecessary material.
• Most emails don’t require a detailed response so try to answer briefly.
• Send out delayed responses. You don’t have to reply to every email immediately and sometimes a delay option slows down the conversation for everyone’s benefit.
• When sending mail – make action requests clear; consider separating topics into separate emails; edit forwarded messages.
• Understand how people prefer to be reached, and how quickly they respond – don’t email staff for urgent business when telephone is more reliable.