This Monday I attended a course on how to work more effective in Outlook. The course is based on the philosophy in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. So it's not all about Outlook YOU have to change some things to :).
The first thing we did when cranking up Outlook was to remove all "you've got mail" sounds and pop-up boxes etc. I only had them off for two days now but man do I like it! I'm able to work more efficient without these interruptions. Cause when that box popped up I just had to read that mail.
This does not mean I stopped reading mail, I only CHOOSE when to read them. Just taking back control over my time from somebody else. A small thing to do but so far really working for me.