By Professor Chris Palmer, American University

With so much business conducted virtually, it is important for your career success to use e-mail effectively and efficiently. Follow these 14 rules and colleagues will notice the difference, and your future career prospects will blossom:

1. At the start of each day, check your emails quickly for key messages if you feel you really have to, and then turn your email off. Select the most important and valuable strategic task you are facing in your career and work on that until it is finished. Resist the temptation to begin your day by wandering around on Facebook or YouTube.

2. Turn off your email while working on other tasks. Allocate certain hours to read and respond to emails. Don’t keep your email on constantly or read emails as they arrive.

3. Clear your in-box within eight hours or sooner. Don’t keep people waiting. Try to respond in the same business day. Delete all unimportant emails and also delete those you have dealt with. Only keep those in your in-box that serve as a reminder of something important to you.

4. Your goal is to respond so effectively that you end the exchange of emails. Be succinct and don’t ramble. To the extent possible, respond immediately when you read an email so it is dealt with and done.

Read more: http://realscreen.com/2008/01/01/page58-20080101/#ixzz1W6TkfV1N

Professor Chris PalmerAuthor of Shooting in the Wild: An Insider's Account of Making Movies in the Animal Kingdom  (Sierra Club Books, 2010)Distinguished Film Producer in ResidenceDirector, Center for Environmental FilmmakingSchool of Communication, American Universitycell 202-716-6160; office 202-885-3408Center website: www.environmentalfilm.org SOC profile: http://www.american.edu/soc/faculty/palmer.cfm Shooting in the Wild on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/gOTUlc Shooting in the Wild website: http://bit.ly/a4L3LU Chris’s Facebook site: http://www.facebook.com/#!/chrispalmer47 Follow me on Twitter @chrispalmer_au Chris’s blog: http://soc-palmer.blogs.american.edu/  President, One World One Ocean FoundationPresident, MacGillivray Freeman Films Educational Foundationcpalmer@mffeducation.orgwww.mffeducation.org Chief Executive Officer, VideoTakes, Inc.chris@videotakes.comwww.videotakes.com