I came across this old post by Nielsen on business email and information pollution. Well
worth (another) read. His six points:

• Don’t check your email all the time.
• Don’t use “reply to all” when responding to email.
• Write informative subject lines for your email messages.
• Create a special email address for personal messages and newsletters.
• Write short.
• Avoid IM.

On the cost of interruptions in a knowledge worker’s day:

A one-minute interruption of your colleagues will cost them ten minutes of productivity as they reestablish their mental context and get back into “flow.”

Other good links:

• The high cost of interruptions from Joel Spolsky
• The value of alone time (the “FOF” flag) from Signals Vs. Noise

Alan Rimm-Kaufman
Alan Rimm-Kaufman founded the Rimm-Kaufman Group...