http://www.bnet.com/blog/ceo/10-ways-to-stop-communication-overload/6135?promo=713&tag=nl.e713

Here are 10 Ways to Stop Communication Overload:

1. Every meeting - physical or virtual - must have an objective, an agenda, a start time and an end time; everybody who attends every meeting must have a specific and definitive purpose for being there.
2. Stop adding people to processes and groups. Every person you add to every process, group, communication, team, whatever, adds complexity and reduces productivity because people tend to say and do things, then others tend to respond, and so-forth. It’s always easier to herd fewer cats.
3. Question the broad use of predefined email distribution lists, reconsider every individual you cc on an email, and most importantly, don’t automatically hit “Reply to All.”
4. Reconsider internal meetings to prepare for other internal meetings, layers and layers of review meetings, the wisdom of “all hands” meetings, and panicked, kneejerk reactions to involve the whole damn world in a crisis.
5. Encourage and reward employee accountability, risk-taking, and initiative for resolving problems on their own.
6. If anybody out there is still trying to make matrix management work, stop. It’s a brilliant organizational concept that’s nearly impossible to execute without creating mass confusion and, ultimately, way more problems than it solves.
7. Be leery of noncritical management fads that are sure to create tons of meetings with amorphous results. Remember OD - Organization Development?
8. Question the ubiquitous “I want to be involved” and “keep me in the loop” micromanaging / controlling mentality.
9. Don’t use collaboration or communication tools for the sake of using them. If the net ROI isn’t clear, don’t do it.
10. Never forget that, now more than ever, time is everyone’s most precious asset.