Every now and then I run across a great web service. SaneBox is such a one—and it is well named. It works. It may help you recover your sanity. It knows the difference between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

One look at an email can rob you of 15 minutes of focus. One call on your cell phone, one tweet, one instant message can destroy your schedule, forcing you to move meetings, or blow off really important things, like love, and friendship.

Jacqueline Leo

Email is familiar. It's comfortable. It's easy to use. But it might just be the biggest killer of time and productivity in the office today.

Ryan Holmes

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I have every reason to love e-mail because it was only through email that I learned I really could write—and had a significant following. Traditional publishers have a tendency not to tell you this stuff. They don’t like their authors to get cocky. In fact, I’m far from sure the five large corporate publishers, who dominate traditional publishing today, like authors—period.

That said, I’m not sure I made the wisest decision when I decided to reply to each fan e-mail personally. Somehow, it felt like the right thing to do—but I stopped counting at 7,000… Add in follow-up e-mails and we are into quantities that ate seriously into my writing time. Still, I love having direct contact with my readers—and I have made some wonderful friends as a consequence.

I have very classy readers.

The bad aspects of e-mail are:

• It is a time sink.
• It breaks focus.
• It’s relentless.
• A great deal of it is badly written.
• Far too much of it is junk.

The best tool I have found for getting e-mail under control is sane.box  it’s an absolutely terrific service. Thank you.

To my readers—once again, thank you as well. Keep writing—and I’ll do the same.

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