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In the mid-nineties, shortly after the release of Windows 95, a computer magazine organized a contest for the messiest desktop. This is what appears on the screen when your computer is ready to work, and it usually contains shortcuts to your most important programs or files. A messy desktop is the same as a messy desk (even the meaning of the translation is the same), they considered in the magazine, leaving it to psychologists to analyze what they saw.

Although the appearance of the desktop still says a lot about the computer user, today much more attention is paid to the way you treat your e-mails. Not without reason; a messy desktop is your thing, but a messy inbox can cause serious business damage, say, if you've lost an important message.

Worse, a London businesswoman was awarded £10.000 when she discovered that her colleagues were making fun of her in emails. She wasn't spying on them, she was simply called by someone in some situation to solve a problem on his computer, and that included looking at the exchanged messages. All that she sensed that she was being talked about when she was not in the room, she now had it in black and white and even worse than she feared. Not to mention the scandal in Britain related to the tragically deceased doctor David Kelly, where everything revolves around e-mails sent by some government officials.

The importance of e-mail is so great that there are special experts who advise you on how to treat it. The first tip is to keep your mail in the best possible order, to sort messages into separate folders and to regularly delete "junk". But what to do with the messages accumulated after a vacation, a trip or a similar multi-day absence. If there are too many, some say, delete them without reading! If among them there were important ones (for others), they will send them to you again, and you can make excuses that you never received them. The assumption is that you will be able to find the message that is important to you.

The Guardian newspaper, known for its excellent section on the Internet (www.guardian.co.uk/online) recommends the following rules: Before sending a message, consider whether it is more productive to call the person on the phone. Do not rush to send, especially when you are angry or offended; an unmeasured reaction can bring you even greater trouble, and you have also left material evidence. The same applies to jokes and comments (see above), who knows who can see it and to whom it can be forwarded. If you criticize someone, do not send a copy of the letter in which you point out "how the work should have been done and what you did to fix someone's mistake" to all the bosses in the company - you will not endear yourself to anyone, but you will ensure someone's permanent enmity. Read the message before sending it and correct any mistakes, especially grammatical and factual. Do not attach large files to messages without first checking with the recipient if they are okay with it. Do not unnecessarily spread "screensavers" and humorous images on the Internet - viruses are usually hidden behind them. Take care of how you title the message, make it easier for the recipient to sort and assess the importance, which is what you want for yourself.

Finally, be open-hearted and ready to forget about a message that someone sent you in a rush and anger, perhaps by mistake, and now despairs over it.