Email drift.

You've heard of mission drift, right? It's where organizations get distracted by other opportunities that aren't part of their original mission. Usually it results in reorganization of some sort.

Today, I got email drift — and I'm afraid it's one of the hazards of storing messages within your email software (like Outlook).

I wanted to reference a previous client document. Remembering it was saved in my "clients" folder, I opened my mail software with the intention of digging into the archive. But that didn't happen.

Instead, I noticed the eight new messages that came in and started replying to each one. Several minutes later, I finish replying, closed the email software and asked myself, "So what was I just doing?"

How many times has "email drift" stolen minutes (maybe more) from our day? The cure is relatively simple: Develop a system of storing attachments and messages on your hard drive. Most software will let you drag and drop messages (sometimes with the attachments) to a folder you can dig up later.

Why is it better? Because storing messages in your email software makes as much sense as storing important letters in your mailbox. It's just messy. Plus, you'll feel compelled to go through the new mail each time you're looking for the notes you've saved.