Stop checking your email, now.

According to a July 2012 McKinsey Global Institute report on "the social economy," the average knowledge worker now spends 28% of her work time managing email. If you work 50 hours per week, that's 14 hours stuck in the inbox. McKinsey's report suggested that workers could improve their email productivity by 25-30% through better use of social collaboration platforms, buying back 7-8.5% of their workweek.

But even if your company isn't investing in such platforms, here's some low-hanging fruit for getting your head out of your inbox for a few of those 14 hours:

• Unsubscribe: Play offense with your inbox by getting yourself off any lists you don't read, and unsubscribing to commercial messages.
• Don't use folders: You can create one "archive" folder if you like to keep your inbox empty, but use the search function to find any information you need.
• Send email at the right time: According to Baydin's analysis, the average email user writes 40 messages a day, but there's no point writing these emails if they don't get read.
• Don't check email so often: Try checking just once an hour, doing 40 minutes of focused work, then 20 minutes of inbox management. Chances are, you'll get a lot more done.