More than 12 trillion emails will be sent by the end of this year. That is an astonishing number for a communications tool that is only about 25 years old. Today email has partially¹ replaced faxes and phone calls as the key way of communicating.

到今年年底人们发出的电子邮件将要超过12万亿封。对于一个只有25年之久的通信工具来说，这是个惊人的数字。现在电子邮件已经部分地取代了传真与电话作为主要通信方式的地位。

But what should you do when you receive too many emails and how do you ensure that you don't get too many in the future?

不过当你收到过多的电子邮件（以下简称邮件）该怎么办？而且，你怎么保证以后不会收到过多的邮件？

Sort your emails in different folders² depending on their content: for example, use different email addresses for different roles. Consider using one address for your private mails, one for work-related stuff, an another for your hobbies or sports activities.

按照邮件的内容将它们归类到不同的文件夹里。例如：不同的角色使用不同的邮件地址。考虑一个地址用于你的私人信件；一个地址用于与工作相关的东西；另一个地址用于你的业余爱好或体育活动。

Try to filter spam. Reading or deleting spam takes time - time that could be used doing something else. Spam is any unwanted email that is not addressed to you specifically.

尝试过滤垃圾邮件。阅读或删除垃圾邮件需要时间——你可以用这些时间来做其它的事情。垃圾邮件是那些不受欢迎的、不是专门发到你的地址的邮件。

Archive or save everything important because you will have to get something from your archives at some point. I wish I had always done that...

将重要的东西存档或保存下来，因为有时候你需要从你的档案里获取某些东西。但愿我以前一直这么做……

Try to keep up-to-date with your private emails, because if you don't, you will never have time to spend on old emails later. From my personal experience, either I reply to an email within a week or I won't deal with it before months...

尝试与邮件保持同步，因为如果你不这么做，以后你就永远没有时间花在旧邮件上。从我的个人经历来说，我要么在一周内回复邮件，要么数月之后才去处理它。

Prioritize email quickly. Reply immediately to the highest priority email, within 24 hours to less-urgent ones and within a week to all others.

迅速对邮件进行优先排序。马上回复最重要的邮件，对那些不那么焦急的邮件在24小时内回复，而所有其它的邮件在一周之内回复。