Email junkies need to hit the "Delete" key sometimes

Are you an email addict? That's a hard term to describe for many, but with so much business and inter-company (and personal) communications coming in and going out in the form of email these days, there are probably millions -- tens of millions -- of email addicts in the U.S. alone. The thing is, they don't even know it.

Email is a nice way to communicate since it does not put people on the spot like a phone call or a meeting does. We can respond at our leisure, and we can read and compose at our leisure too. But, I've seen countless folks who have some kind of personal "time limit" on responding to an email, as if there is some hidden challenge or something. That's one of the signs of email addiction.

Another sign? The RIM Blackberry and Palm Treo. Business users advocate that these devices make them more productive since they can conduct email business anywhere they are. This is true and these devices are true time-savers in every respect. What happens, though, is that email never, ever leaves you -- and that's a bad, bad thing in my opinion. There is time for business and time for not being interrupted. Yet, with email on our hip 24/7, are we creating a nation of email addicts? That's still up for debate. But can you hit the "delete" key on your email lifestyle, if just for a short while?