Email is the scourge of our modern times. When I co-invented host-based email with my former partner Bob Green in 1984 it was because we found the telephone interrupted our creative processes. We wanted a way to communicate over mundane tasks, like when and where we would meet for lunch next week, without having to interrupt each other. We liked snail mail because the recipient could decide when they wanted to look for it.

You are standing outside your office door having just walked into the building for the first time today. As you contemplate sitting down to get to the first tasks of the day done, you make a decision to turn around and walk around the office. You make sure that you connect with each of your first reports, being curious about how each individual is doing today. Only after having walked around and connected do you return to your office to work on what is next.