The period between Christmas and New Year is often a slow time for many executives. It gives us a chance to reflect on the year just passed and plan for success in the years to come. It also gives us the chance to clear out all those emails that we’ve been ignoring for months or squirreled away in a folder with a name that must have made sense at the time we created it. However, the best part about this quiet time is that you can send emails to people, safe in the knowledge that their in-box is unprotected. Oh sure, you’ll get those annoying ‘out of office’ responses that taunt you with grandiose descriptions of your colleagues' vacation plans. But you finally get the chance to win the battle of the email wars. With no one guarding their in-box, you can gleefully clean out yours and spread the holiday spirit with requests for your employees to action when they return. So, take a long lunch, surf the web, call those friends out of town using the company’s dime and defend your in-box. Before you know it, your colleagues will be back at work and your clutter-free inbox will be a distant memory.

Paul Robinson