I figured anyone who put a huge stuffed duck on her mortarboard when she graduated college would have some very interesting things to say about anything she wanted to write about, and that was sort of the initial reason I took a look at Overcome Email Overload, by Kaitlin Duck Sherwood.
   Actually, I needed to read this book. Between you, our readers; my relatives and friends; my volunteer work and the inevitable SPAM (aside from belonging to AOL, the biggest generator of SPAM seems to be to register a domain name), it is not unusual for me to get 100-plus email messages a day. Maybe a lady with a duck on her mortarboard had the key to all of this.
   I am making too much of the duck (and you'll have to link to the web site Ms. Sherwood maintains to find out about it – a cute story) because Overcome Email Overload is the real McCoy. In fact, it is the best system I have seen – using some of the tricks in Outlook and Outlook Express) to make the program work for you instead of vice-versa. And while I have always been wary of other people's "systems" for solving what I consider my unique problems, Overcome Email Overload has probably cut the time I spend managing my email in half.
   Along with Ms. Sherwood's system are some excellent guidelines for using other parts of Outlook (there is also a version for Eudora and books in the works for Lotus Notes and Netscape Mail), how to actually write and send an email message and how to improve the overall effectiveness of your email. There is even a chapter on how to make email from your business work better.
   Not only was the content extremely useful, but the writing style is excellent – what I would call just the right brand of humor and clear instruction. While not exactly the latest Stephen King novel, it was as much fun to read as any instruction book I have found.
   You can order direct from Ms. Sherwood's web site.

   Link to the Overcome Email Overload web site.