Leading Web thinker Jakob Nielsen coined the term "information pollution" and has some recommendations to help information workers wrest back their productivity from their inbox.

Personal strategies

1. Rather than checking your e-mail constantly, choose a set time to check in and see new messages.
2. Don't use "reply to all" when responding to e-mail. Send follow-up messages only to those people who will actually benefit from the reply.
3. Write informative subject lines for your e-mail messages. Be specific.
4. Create a special e-mail address for personal messages and newsletters. Only check this account once per day.
5. Be brief.
6. Avoid instant messaging unless real-time interaction will truly add value to the communication. 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."

Enterprise strategies

1. Answer common customer questions on your Web site using clear and concise language. This will save your customers a lot of time and keep them from pestering you with time-consuming phone calls and e-mails.
2. User-test your intranet. Clean it up so that employees can find information faster, and make the intranet homepage their entry point for keeping up on company news and events.
3. Don't circulate internal e-mail to all employees; put the information on the intranet where people can find it when they need it.
4. Establish a company culture in which it's acceptable not to respond to e-mail immediately. This frees employees from the pressure of incessantly checking e-mail and lets them get more work done.

Reducing the volume of messages is a worthwhile goal for almost every organization. If you can achieve it, you can subsequently reduce other costs associated with managing e-mail, including server operations, personal interruption rates, message handling by recipients and even message origination. When you reduce e-mail volume, productivity does increase, and the e-mail system becomes a more effective tool for the messages it does handle.