Even if you find this advice pretty generic, I really admire that he takes a little time to do lots of entrepreneur-advice articles and interviews and such. He could brush off these things as beneath him, but it's so amazing that he takes time to share advice.
One thing to keep in mind about guys like Branson is that they have a small army of assistants and secretaries. So they can get a lot more done because of this help.
I saw a talk from some young dude in Salt Lake City who built and sold a large company.
One neat piece of advice he had was that the executive assistant should be one of the first five employees. Because a good EA gives time back to the founders, it's basically like getting another founder. He said that he and his EA have their teamwork down so well that he gets another 40 hours in his week.
My trick for handling email is to only answer the previous day's email unless an incoming email is urgent (ie. requires an immediate response). That way when you start your day you'll know how many emails you'll have to answer; AND once you answer those emails you are done for the day. Otherwise, you'll get stuck using email as IM with all those folks replying instantly from their Blackberries and iPhones.
His advice about checking email (or any distraction, ahem, Hacker News, Reddit, Facebook) in bursts is spot on. You'll see your productivity go up and your focus will improve.
As an entrepreneur, my ability to hire and motivate great staff is a big concern. Branson is right about it being essential to a successful business. I'd like to see specific, practical advice on selecting and retaining stellar employees.
Having worked at a startup that had the most loyal employees I've ever seen, I can offer these points that I noticed (aimed at the rockstar employees):
1. Pay them above market rate.
2. Involve them in your idea process.
3. Give overall guidance, but let them brainstorm how to implement an idea and who will work on it.
I was thinking for a time saving solution in regards to email, dont know if it exists, some plug in for email that gives you word clouds so you know what to read or not.
In an attempt to increase my productivity I turned off e-mail notifications, now I only notice new messages when I mouse-over the OSX dock or manually check my mail client. The result is messages only catch my attention when I was already context-switching, which so far seems much less harmful to my productivity then every new message triggering a context switch to my mail client...
