Time management is about two things, and neither of those two things is managing time! You cannot do much about the clock! All you can do is manage the things you do with your time.

Did you spot the answer yet? It’s in the last sentence of that last paragraph. What we all tend to call time management is actually about:

• managing things
• managing yourself

It’s about knowing what things are important and getting on with them, and it’s about having the self-discipline to keep on keeping on.

And what about e-mail? And Twitter? What are we supposed to do about them? The same as we have always done! We have always had to manage our communication methods, no matter how old or modern. And, we have always had to manage our marketing methods. The fact that we can now do these things electronically and on the web, does not make the tasks any different to what they were before. The tasks have not changed - the mode of delivery has.

Do you have a problem with e-mail? How many messages are in your inbox? I have no problem, and there are normally between zero and twenty messages in my inbox. I use the incubator and repository method to manage my e-mail, and I use the zero inbox philosophy.

How do you manage your e-mail?