I was out on a Friday recently. When I logged in on Monday morning, there were 146 emails (real ones...Our SPAM filter got rid of the junky ones). I went to an hour meeting that morning at 9:00 (after I had plowed through the email). When I came back, there were 64 more.

I'm buried lately, but I'm caught in a dilemma. I don't want to discourage the project ones because I want to keep up to date on all the goings on and keep the lines of communication open, especially when I can't attend every meeting.

One a good day, here's how I manage the volumes of emails...

1. I skim the inbox first and delete any notices or ads that I don't need.

2. I respond to all meeting invitations and updates.

3. I read everything and use Outlook's flag feature to mark the ones I need to respond to. (I love the color-coded flags.)

4. I set up a folder for every work effort that I need to keep track of. Once I respond, it goes into that folder.

5. Anything that's not fully resolved stays in my inbox until it's addressed.

6. And if I'm going to be out for more than 2 days, I log in and clean up my email box from home before I return to work. It makes the first back-to-work morning better.

Good luck! It doesn't seem like the volume of email is going to slow down any time soon.