We've all done it: sent an email we wish we hadn't, forwarded a message to someone we didn't intend to, deleted a message by mistake, or otherwise misused (or overused) email.

Two new books offer advice for managing it, and avoiding some of the more common email-related blunders.

Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home is co-written by Will Schwalbe, editor in chief of Hyperion Books, and David Shipley, op-ed page editor of The New York Times. It is all about the etiquette and style of emailing other people.

For example, they describe eight reasons why you may not want to email:

1. The ease of email encourages unnecessary exchanges.
2. Email has largely replaced the phone call, but not every phone call should be replaced.
3. You can reach everyone, but everyone can reach you.
4. The fact that email defies time zones also means that it can defy propriety.
5. The fact that email always provides a searchable record means that you can be held accountable for your electronic correspondence (and important information can be hidden in seemingly innocuous emails).
6. The ease with which an email can be forwarded poses a danger.
7. With email, your words can be changed.
8. Email attachments don't just come with baggage -- they are baggage.

Bit Literacy is by Mark Hurst, a principal in the New York consulting firm Creative Good. He focuses on email proficiency, and how to avoid being overwhelmed by information overload. For example, he describes five bad uses for email inboxes:

1. To-do list: Users often keep action items in the inbox. They're hard to find and easy to forget.
2. Filing system: Meeting notes, project status messages, attachments containing proposals, and other important documents often sit in the inbox, instead of going to a proper project folder.
3. Calendar: Dates and time for meetings, conference calls, and other appointments pile up in the inbox, often sticking around long after the appointment has passed.
4. Bookmarks list: Some emails remain in the inbox because they contain web addresses, or user names and passwords for web site logins, that the user isn't sure where to store.
5. Address book: Messages containing phone numbers and postal addresses of contacts sit in the inbox instead of being entered into an actual address book.

For an overview of both books, read a syndicated column by Steve Johnson, Chicago Tribune Internet critic.

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