With the increase in the amount of spam and junk messages that are received daily, e-mail is becoming more of a task to maintain. You open your e-mail to look for a message you've been waiting for only to find unwanted e-mail messages trying to sell you products and services by the dozens. As e-mail has become an essential communication tool, strategies to organize and reduce the load have become very important. Although you can't completely get rid of this spam, below are some strategies to try to reduce it.

1. Never, ever respond to spam. When you do, you are telling the advertiser you are a prime target for even more spam. Responding to a message that says "click here to unsubscribe" simply informs the advertiser that they have an address that is checked on a regular basis, which makes the address even more valuable and more likely to be sold to other advertisers. Advertisers who send spam in text format don't know that you have opened and read their message, unless you respond. If you open HTML-formatted mail, however, code is pulled from the spammer's server, letting them know they have a live address. The best practice is to delete junk e-mail without opening it. Sooner or later, you will drop off that list.
   
   If you have the preview pane open in Outlook, Outlook Express or Netscape, you may automatically be opening these junk e-mail messages. To turn the preview pane off in these programs: in Outlook, click View and then Preview Pane; in Outlook Express, click View, Layout, and then uncheck Show Preview Pane; in Netscape, click either arrow on the pane itself and the preview portion will disappear.
   
   
2. Set up a second, or even third, e-mail address. Use your main address only for contacts that you trust such as business associates, friends and family. Never give this address out to a web site, survey, database or chat room. Use the second and/or third address for these purposes. Most internet service providers allow multiple e-mail accounts without additional charge with their service. If yours doesn't, set up a free web-based account like Yahoo! Mail or Hotmail.
   
   
3. Filter your messages. Many e-mail software programs have ways to filter junk e-mail before it gets to you. You may be able to accept e-mail from certain addresses but block all others, or set up mail handling rules. You may be able to set up a rule that automatically deletes mail from specific addresses or automatically files e-mail that wasn't specifically addressed to you. Some e-mail software can automatically file mail in a spam folder if the subject contains words like "extra income," "special offer," or "XXX." Outlook 2002 lets you color-code messages in your inbox that it suspects are spam or adult content so you can easily scan the list for deletion. Check the options in your e-mail software to see if any filters are available.
   
   

Finally, organizing your inbox can help manage the multitude of good messages you have in your e-mail system. Make sure you archive old messages regularly. Set up subfolders within your inbox to categorize the messages by subject or project. Make sure you routinely clean and delete messages from your inbox, sent messages and deleted items or trash folders. You should treat your e-mail system as a filing cabinet and clean it regularly.

If you implement these strategies, managing your e-mail should be much easier and you should reduce the amount of spam you receive. Just remember, you cannot totally stop spam. Although irritating, it is no different than the junk postal mail, television advertising and telemarketing. In fact, without it, we probably wouldn't have a virtually free Internet to surf.