I recommend you to take care of the minutes for the hours will take care of themselves.” -Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)
David Allen, my personal idol and author of the book Getting Things Done, has a two-minute rule for answering emails:
If the Next Action can be done in 2 minutes or less, do it when you first pick the item up. [Do this] even if that item is not a "high priority", because it takes longer to store and track any item than to deal with it the first time it's in your head." (p. 131, "Getting Things Done")
I find that SPAM (whether it's for V1Agr$ or a newsletter I don't want) almost always fits in the two-minute rule. Be vigilant about it! If you receive an unwanted email, unsubscribe immediately and delete. Save yourself the annoyance of deleting the same spam over and over again. If you're not quite ready to unsubscribe from something like a mailing list, at least set up a filter within two minutes of receiving the first mailing so you don't have to label each email individually.
Got other tips for handling SPAM efficiently? Let us know!