How to Prioritize my Emails

I’m one of the new generation internet professionals affected by the “inbox syndrome“, in a nutshell I receive tons of emails every day and it’s very difficult to keep up with all of them effectively.

During my trips to US, the problem becomes even worse, since I get up in the morning with all the emails arriving from Europe waiting for my action and many of them really need a quick reply.

How to solve this problem?

The partial solution could be a way to set priorities to my emails. I don’t want to see emails ordered by arrival date, but by priority, according to my rules. The ideal scenario should be the following:

#1) Replies to emails sent to people that I don’t have in my address book
Those are likely mails that could be a response to a business proposal or business opportunity. Number one in my list.

#2) New emails from people that I have in my address book, according to certain levels of relevance that I should have set before in my address book
I’m speaking of emails from people I know and that I will surely read

#3) Emails from people that I don’t have in my AB
Those should be partnership opportunities as well as useless sales approaches by people that I don’t care about.

I don’t usually receive mails from my family, so those are not relevant in my list. I think there could be ways to do that through filters, but never been able to manage them to really do it.

Any idea? Please leave your comments and suggestions.

luca filigheddu, emails