E-mail is an incredibly useful tool that allows me to do my job more efficiently, and is also a major distraction and headache. I can drop my mom a quick note in between phone calls, which is an inexpensive alternative to long distance charges, but I also can waste 20 minutes weeding through spam and advertising.

My assumption is that most people who interact with e-mail have a similar love-hate opinion of it.

Hand's down, the best e-mail client on the market is Gmail by Google. Google is constantly working to keep spam out of your inbox, and offer a number of useful features -- the best of these are tagging and searching. If you don't have a Gmail account and want one, go here.

If you're like me, though, you can't process all of your e-mail through Gmail. You might have a Gmail account for your private mail, but at work you need to use Outlook or Noteworthy on company time. And, unless you work in an environment with a dedicated e-mail technology staff member, you probably have a few headaches when it comes to your work e-mail account.

When handling e-mail, I try to think of it like good ol' fashion regular mail sent through the postal system. For starters, my mail carrier doesn't come to my house every few minutes, so I don't constantly have my e-mail client open. If you work in an office where responding to e-mail is a must, set a timer so that you open your e-mail at the top of every hour and process it for no more than five minutes. You'll be able to get through the "must reads" in five minutes. Then, schedule yourself 45 minutes during your least productive time of the day (for me, this is after lunch), to dedicate to lengthier responses and handling of e-mail action items. I work in a job where accessing e-mail every hour isn't a necessity. So, I set aside three 30 minute periods for e-mail -- 8:00, 1:00, and 5:30.

Secondly, when postal mail arrives in my house, I immediately process it. I complete a similar system with my e-mail. If an e-mail is junk mail or spam, I instantly delete it. If I can respond to a message in 15 seconds or less, I respond and then archive the message that was sent to me by placing it in a folder labeled "Archive." If a message requires further action on my part, I move it into a folder I have labeled "Further Action." After all of the messages are either deleted, archived, or moved into my Further Action folder, I then open my Further Action file and process as many of these tasks as I can until my timer sounds and I close my e-mail client. When an item is completed, the corresponding e-mail is moved to the Archive folder. (When working in Gmail, you can tag the messages Archive or Further Action instead of moving them into folders.)

Finally, I don't use the postal service for all of my communications, and I don't see e-mail as the only communication method, either. Often times, it is more efficient to pick up the phone and call a colleague than it is to exchange numerous e-mails. A three minute phone call can replace 40 minutes wasted on e-mail. Also, intent and tone are often difficult to interpret over e-mail, so it's better to pick up the phone when handling delicate and extremely important matters.

Treating e-mail like postal mail will help you to be an organized and productive user. Have a set time to access your e-mail, process your mail immediately out of your inbox by deleting it or moving it to "Archive" or "Further Action" folders, and use other forms of communication if appropriate. Good luck, and I'm interested in reading about how you organize your e-mail in the comments to this post!