According to one recent survey, nearly 70 percent can't go to sleep without doing it. 40 percent have done it at the dinner table. And 70 percent of us do it before 8 AM.

What am I talking about? Work-related email. If you work at a computer, or even have a smart phone, you know how much time it sucks up. It derails your train of thought. It interrupts your entire day.

Like Pavlov's dog, you hear a ding, you check your email - after all, it may be important, right?

But it usually isn't. It destroys your focus. What you need to learn to do is manage your email, instead of it managing you. I asked an expert for some tips on doing exactly that.

The first is to turn off those little "dings" and things that interrupt your focus.

 "Otherwise you're going to spend your whole day constantly reactive to what other people need, as opposed to being focused on what you really want to be doing today."

Next, stop using your inbox as a task list. So you can take charge of how you spend your day. And finally, clear your inbox every day.

Nobody leaves messages back in their postal box after they take the mail out and read it. Why do people do that in their inbox? Instead, just press "archive all" and move the messages out. You'll feel this weight lifted off of you."

So there you have it. The key: controlling your inbox instead of having it control you.

But that's just the beginning - Jared's got a lot more information, including specific instructions on filtering your email.  To see it, just go to MoneyTalksNews.com and search for "Email."

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