This is as much about your personal effectiveness as a professional as it is a benefit to the universe. The Email Charter has some great recommendations for reducing the overall volume of email at the macro-level which can be applied to the individual-level, as well.  I’ve included a few other recommendations of my own here:

1. Schedule time on your calendar to process all of the messages in your email inbox.  Your goal each week is to leave the office on Friday with an empty inbox!
2. Don’t mistake your email inbox for a “to do” list (or worse) a project management tool.
3. Professional relationships are not built via email.  Do you spend time face-to-face with the people who can help you be a successful professional– clients, managers, mentors?

The Email Charter was created in response to widespread acknowledgement that email is getting out of hand for many people. It started life as a blog post by TED Curator Chris Anderson and TED Scribe Jane Wulf. The idea struck a chord. More than 45,000 people read the post and it generated hundreds of tweets, comments and suggestions. That is how the final Charter was shaped. Some of the key contributors are listed here.

The Charter is a private, non-commercial initiative, a simple ‘idea worth spreading’.