How often do you leave the office thinking that you have caught up your emails only to arrive in the morning to find 40 or 50 emails waiting with more streaming in all day long?  It's possible to spend entire days just working through messages, the way that entire days used to be consumed by phone calls.  Here are some ideas for taming the email beast.

Start your day by deciding what must be accomplished before you check your email.  "If you don't know what you should be doing, how can you manage your time to do it?" asks Penelope Trunk, who gives career advice in some 200 newspapers and offers career coaching at PenelopeTrunk.com

If possible, check email only at set times in the day.  Determine when it is most important for emails to be checked based on your job responsibilities and typical work flow.   "It you're a manager, you need to get all questions answered at the beginning of the day, or else nobody in your department can do what they need to do," says Trunk.  However, she adds, "If you're a creative person, you may not need to check emails at all until you get your project done for the day."

Determine the most productive hours of your day and use them effectively.  Use your most productive hours for projects, reports and creative endeavors and then check emails during the remainder of the day.  You will be able to complete more demanding tasks without being continually interrupted or distracted.

Turn off audible alerts and visual notification.  When you answer an email on demand, it takes more than a minute to regain your train of thought and get back to what you were doing.

Organize your e-mail using folders and rules or filters.  This enables you to identify, categorize and file incoming emails based on sender, keywords or subject.

Keep it short.  "Work on keeping your responses shorter than the initial messages, " says Trunk.  "Try to get your responses down to one sentence when possible."

Stick to a discipline.  It's important to have the discipline to open an email and either a) delete it, b) respond quickly or c) file it for your records in a folder.

Observe basic email etiquette.   If you are in the "to" section of an email, respond if requested.  If you are in the "cc" section of an email, you are not expected to respond.  Send emails with a succinct subject line so that the recipient knows what to expect in the email.  If you feel the need to thank a sender for information provided and you are not adding to the information, then thank the sender only rather than including the entire "cc" list. 

Pick up the phone!  While emails can be an efficient means of communicating with others, a phone call may be warranted when a matter is urgent or when an email may be misconstrued or to strengthen a relationship with a coworker, customer, supplier, etc.  A strategic phone call can have a huge impact in this electronic age.

Turn off email and social media for balance.  Give priority to your family and/ or to personal pursuits when you leave the office.  Nobody can reasonably expect you to be available 24 hours a day on a continuing basis, so turn off the email and social media when interacting with family and friends.  You will be more refreshed and ready to respond when you have had a break from the email beast.

 condensed from Smart Solutions in "Creative Living - Spring 2012" by Brooks Clark