101 Tips for Telecommuters—Successfully Manage Your Work, Team, Technology and Family

11. Manage the Maddening Mounds of Mail

You may recall feeling burdened in the not-too-distant past by the volume of paper that filled your in-basket. It seemed that days would be filled with meetings, travel, and “normal” work, followed by the seemingly endless end-of-day processing of mail. (Unless, of course, you stuffed it in your extra brief case and took it all home to read!) Then the enlightened age of technology brought us the time-saving (and supposedly paperless) wonders of voice mail and e-mail … and you saved time, right? Not likely, since now you have three inbound sources of mail instead of one! And, no doubt, you feel as if you're drowning in it all. How can you stay afloat?

The overriding guide on handling mail is to do it as ...