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Long ago and in a far away land at a startup firm, there were impromptu celebrations of a new client relationship with the ringing of a cowbell, followed by a boom box playback of "Grazing In the Grass", an instrumental by South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela. There was really no significance in the cowbell or the song itself, other than taking the time to celebrate a successful milestone where hard work, talent and tenacity paid off.

Over time, the culture changed from outward to inward as the endless meetings, recaps, IMs and emails started infringing on productivity. A team of twenty quickly mushroomed to over three hundred team members with a corresponding exponential deluge of e-mails.

In a short time, managing upwards of 200 internal e-mails with the various threads and off topic sidebars began controlling our workday and subsequently, productivity! There was no more time to ring the cowbell as we were so busy with the urgent versus the things that really matter - providing value, returning phone calls, following up on tasks – basics that we come to expect and deliver as clients, customers and stakeholders.

If you're being buried alive by e-mail, set aside some time to hear from Merlin Mann. Known for his blog 43Folders, Merlin writes about personal productivity, life hacks, and simple ways to make your life a little better.

Recently, Merlin presented a lecture at Google entitled “Inbox Zero”. There are practical tips offered in a framework to stop e-mail from taking over our lives. Once e-mails are properly processed, there are more opportunities to build relationships; face-to-face, voice-to-voice. We could use more cowbell in our lives!

Slides available