I was recently asked by Rich of California: It often seems that I spend all day checking and answering e-mail. What are the most effective techniques for getting myself out of e-mail hell?

Below are answers from the Y.E.C. Mentors. Co-Founded by Donna Fenn and Scott Gerber, Y.E.C. Mentors is an initiative of the Young Entrepreneur Council, a nonprofit organization that provides young entrepreneurs with access to tools, mentorship, community and educational resources that support each stage of their business’s development and growth. Y.E.C. Mentors’ members are successful executives, serial entrepreneurs and thought leaders.

1. A system for everything

The easiest way to handle e-mail is to create a system that is proportionate to the payoff. It's easy to get sucked into the unimportant e-mail. To avoid this, I suggest 4 tips: 1) check in at set times, 2) handle anything that takes less than a minute, 3) create tasks for things that need to be handled first, and 4) consider filters for routine mail and canned answers for repeated responses

- John Jantsch, Duct Tape Marketing

2. Consider a virtual assistant

Timothy Ferris gives the best recommendations about e-mail management: hire a virtual assistant and let them do the heavy lifting and check in a couple of times a week. It also helps to set an auto responder with a thank you and contacts who are in charge of the various categories of our work: sales, service, Q&A's, media inquires, etc.

- Ingrid Vanderveldt, Ingrid Vanderveldt LLC

3. It's okay to declare e-mail bankruptcy

The real value is in live interactions, so e-mail should not be the first place to go. This is the poorest means of communication that we have available, even though there is great value in being able to communicate asynchronously. For myself, I use Google mail Priority Inbox, which extract the most important emails for me. Anything else I check only if I have time. People drive my day, not e-mails.

- Marc Dangeard, Melcion Chassagne & Cie

4. Deal with all e-mails within 24 hours

E-mail is now far more important (and efficient) in my business than phone calls, so you need to find an effective way to deal with it. Set a goal for yourself to answer every important e-mail within 4 hours, if possible, and within 24 hours for the less important ones. Then move on to the next day's e-mails. Don't create a backlog for yourself that will hang over you.

- Reed Phillips, DeSilva + Phillips

5. Admit to your addiction

Systems and procedures are great if you can stick to them. But if you are addicted to the incoming rush of e-mail, you have to take stronger steps. Limit your time on the computer. Leave your mobile phone on your desk. Step outside your office. Go for a walk. Take nothing but a pen and paper in case ideas strike. Then focus like mad when you allow yourself 30 minutes to answer your e-mail.

- Debbie Weil

6. Go from inbox hell to inbox zero in three days

Read about Inbox Zero in David Allen's book Getting Things Done. It will change your life. E-mail is just an inbox—you want to quickly get everything out of it and into a system. Only process mail a few times a day. Do this by deleting or responding to each item in under 60 seconds. If you can't do that then it's a task for your to-do list, and no an e-mail that should sit in your inbox.

- David Cohen, TechStars

7. Filter, filter, filter

First, have a great spam filter. Second, have a fabulous assistant who will preview and handle e-mails that don't need your personal attention. (Your time is more expensive that your assistant's.) Third, respond to the remaining e-mails within 24 hours. (I do it first thing, midday and at the end of the day.) Remember to be respectful of others; don't "cc" unnecessarily.

- Sharon Lechter, Pay Your Family First

8. Define, eliminate, develop

Define the nature of e-mail relationships within the organization: set expectations around how much time will be spent, and when, answering e-mails. Next, immediately eliminate any emails which are sent to you as a BCC—if it is important, you will be brought into the conversation. Lastly, develop short answers whenever possible.

- Leonard Schlesinger, Babson College

9. Take control of your time

Be deliberate. Set a fixed amount of time to manage e-mails and stick to it. Don't allow for distractions—no phone calls, pop-ins, surfing, just e-mails. When you're isolated and singularly focused, you're extremely productive. This will allow you to singularly focus on other responsibilities throughout the day since you won't have the e-mail distraction. Since you're in charge, be in charge!

- Chris Zane, Zane's Cycles