What’s the most common form of business communication in your organization? If you’re like most companies, it’s e-mail. What’s the most commonly misinterpreted, abused, overused, annoying and generally frustrating form of communication in your organization? Yep, that’s what I thought.

E-mail has seemingly become the fifth basic life requirement to many of us: Oxygen, water, food, shelter—and e-mail. Not necessarily in that order, right? I know some folks who would probably go out into a snowstorm without a coat before they would ever consider going without e-mail for even a few minutes of their hectic day.

And it’s easy to get caught up in that mindset. E-mail is available everywhere. It’s so convenient. It’s on our computers, our phones, our iPads. We can send and receive from anywhere in the world.

And that’s the problem. Because e-mail is so convenient, it becomes very easy for us to use e-mail when it’s probably not our best venue for a particular conversation. In fact, there are some times when it’s probably the worst method imaginable, and the results of those “conversations” (and their accompanying misunderstandings) may haunt us for a very long time.

How often have you received an e-mail that you simply didn’t understand? You read and re-read it to no avail. It was hopeless. How often did you hit the Reply button for clarification? Was that a good idea? How much more effective might a phone call or face-to-face conversation been in those situations?

Speaking of receiving e-mail, what happens when your computer (or tablet, or phone) dings? Do you rush to see what just arrived? It’s almost Pavlovian, isn’t it? Except much of what we receive in e-mail today isn’t terribly palatable. In fact, we usually have to dig through a lot of slop to get to the good stuff.

An unfortunate side effect of being so “on top” of all those inbound e-mail messages is that you’re distracted from whatever you were working on at the time. Add up those minor interruptions throughout a given workday, and they can have a major impact on your productivity.

How many times have you checked your e-mail inbox and found a “crisis” waiting for your? It was marked as “high priority” but when you opened it, you thought to yourself, “Gee, I could’ve easily handled that if they had simply called me.” You’re not alone.

I’m not saying we’re ever going to get away from this trend of communicating more and more via e-mail. E-mail certainly has its uses and is an important part of our work relationships. In some cases, it may be the only practical way to transfer information. But let’s call it like it is, recognize its advantages and disadvantages, and make a conscious decision to use it in the best possible way. After all, e-mail is just another tool at our disposal. Let’s manage our e-mail, because the alternative is that it might just be managing us.