In prehistoric days, you’d pick up the phone and start calling old friends. Why weren’t they happy to hear from you at 2 in the morning? That still didn’t stop folks from doing it.

But now, through the wonders of modern technology, you can share your random thoughts with your friends without waking them up — thanks to e-mail.

But like buyer’s remorse, that e-mail that sounded great at 2 a.m. takes on a different meaning in the light of day. In retrospect, folks realize, it probably would’ve been more prudent to refrain from hitting the send key.

That’s the motivation behind “Mail Goggles.”

G-Mail users can police themselves by building barriers — checkpoints — before shipping that questionable e-mail.

You choose your own “witching hour(s)” and Mail Goggles will make it more difficult for you to send messages during that time.

The program stops and asks a series of math questions before it’ll unleash your e-mail. You can adjust the degree of math difficulty, too.

If you flunk the math quiz, the program tells you, “Water and bed for you. Or try again.”

If you want to give it a spin, you’ll need to sign up for (free) Gmail. Then, go to the Labs tab under Settings, and you’ll be able to turn it on.

Why? It might not be so funny after all.

One e-mail sender’s idea of “funny” might sound like caustic sarcasm to the recipient, it turns out. That’s because e-mail readers are likely to misunderstand the tone of a message up to half of the time, research reveals.

So pause before you press Send.

Why is this a problem with e-mail?

According to Psychology Today, e-mail removes the opportunity for humans to “read” each other’s facial expressions and body language. Non-verbal communication makes up between 65% and 93% of human interaction (depends who you ask).

Also, it’s difficult to realize when you’re writing an e-mail that what you’re saying might sound significantly different to the recipient.

Solution: Re-read the e-mail. If you can, read it aloud to see how it sounds. Walk away, come back in a few minutes and read it again. Put yourself in the recipient’s place. How would you react if this e-mail showed up in your inbox?

Worse yet, some of these sites will “share” your information with interested industry parties — which means more junk in your Inbox.

Good news: There’s a mail proxy service that’ll spare you these problems.

Akapost.com is a free service that can make outgoing e-mails untraceable, yet still direct responding e-mails back to your original e-mail address.

By establishing an Internet “alter ego,” you’ll help protect your real e-mail address from landing in unwanted places.

How it works, in a nutshell:

• type in your outgoing e-mail target — then add “akapost.com” to the address
• that message will be captured by akapost; your real e-mail adress will be removed and the pseudonym you’ve selected will be substituted — with “akapost.” as the originating address
• if that recipient wants to respond, they hit “reply” and send the message; akapost snags it and substitutes your real e-mail address for the pseudonym.

• keeping up with an average of 156 e-mails a day
• switching tasks every three minutes
• spending one-quarter of your day handling interruptions and recovering from them, and
• being told everything is a high priority.

Sounds like the formula for putting Purchasing and Procurement pros in full overload mode.

There isn’t a lot you can do to slow the tide of e-mails or stop interruptions in their tracks. Still, some companies have come up with solutions.

One example: At IBM, the company started “ThinkFridays,” a one-day-a-week moratorium on meetings, calls and e-mails.

Of course, not all of us are so fortunate. But there are some slight tweaks you can make on your end of the problem that can ease your stress level immensely

• Deal with e-mail right away with “one touch” — read it, delete it, file it or act on it
• From the same school of thought, experts recommend keeping e-mail in-boxes clean. It frees you to think about higher-value activities
• Come up with five key goals for each week, and list them somewhere you’ll see them often, and
• Rely more on instant messaging for “quick hit” communications.

There’s hope on the horizon: Some of the heavy hitters in the communication industry are trying to create ways to cut back on “information pollution.” But until that happens, you’re on your own to find fresh air.