Outlook is a great tool and we arguably couldn’t do without it, but it has a nasty habit of taking over our working lives! Put yourself in control and avoid a life of outlook misery!

Don’t be a slave to the bleep! New mail notification is the Devil's work. The little beep is just a spoilt brat who is trying to get your attention – it wants to drag you away from your other (possibly tedious) tasks and has an uncanny knack of always getting its way. For goodness sake turn it off - it’s the only way to save yourself from the temptation!

Set yourself time slots for checking outlook. Try setting yourself specific times for dealing with outlook. Ideally you’d just check once in the morning and once in the afternoon, but even if you can only manage once an hour you’ll be amazed by how much time you’ll save.

Use out of office when you’re in the office! It doesn’t have to be just for when you’re on your holidays – use in between your time slots (as above) or if you’ve got a task that you need to focus on. Don’t lie on your message – be honest and explain when you’ll be next able to check email and when you’ll be able to respond. If it’s really urgent you can be sure that you’ll be hunted down.

Communicate with your boss. If your boss bombards you with emails then try and open up other channels of communication. Email may just be a habit that your boss has got into, so next time you get another email try picking up the phone to respond.

Handle each email once! Don’t fluff around over your emails and keep on revisiting and re-reading them. Make sure you only handle each email once by following the simple ‘4 D ‘ rule! Deal with it, Delete it, Delegate it or Defer it!