In regards to his e-mail usage for project management I believe he routinely cleans out his inbox of anything that does not need to be addressed and files it away into it’s appropriate folder. I’m currently trying to apply this as well, but cleaning out thousands of e-mails is taking some time. But it is kind of freeing.
At work we use AutoTask, however, it’s a bit slow and not my favorite tool. It can be pretty darn powerful but you really have to sit down and learn it.