If you are anything like me, the Christmas break usually brings its share of pleasure and terror as I anticipate my ever-growing email inbox awaiting me on my return to work in January. In previous years, it has taken a good week to fully deal with its contents and get it back under control.

This Christmas was an exception. Over the past year I have been trialling tactics and tools for a stress-free inbox, five of which I would like to share with you today.

1.Gmail Priority Inbox

One of my favourite finds this year has been the new feature from Gmail - Priority Inbox. Released in beta in August 2010, the application has helped my transformation into an email ninja.

Priority Inbox learns which are you most ‘important’ emails and 'prioritises' them by posting them at the top of your inbox. Next are your 'read' and 'starred' emails i.e. those you have read and designated as actionable/important/stuff I must read etc. Lastly, comes everything else - 'unimportant' messages or important messages that have already been read. I find that Priority Inbox allows me to see at a glance what needs to be responded to first and what can ‘go hang’ for a while.

Here's a video of how it works:

Gmail is fairly intuitive but you can also teach it what is important and what is not by using the ‘important’ and ‘not important’ buttons. This way I can designate any emails directly addressed to me as ‘important’ and any emails I am copied into as ‘unimportant’, along with any newsletters or notifications. Priority Inbox is a great way of ensuring that those important client emails or exciting opportunities do not get buried in your inbox.

2. Filters

Filters are another Gmail feature that I heavily use for processing my inbox quickly (they are similar to Rules in Microsoft Outlook).

Every email I receive is set up with a filter automatically labelling it with the project name so that after reading it or actioning it, it can be archived immediately. Filters can be used to automatically forward emails to team members for action; to send emails to other 'inboxes' such as Action, Reading, Waiting On etc (if you are a fan of the David Allen's GTD method). I use filters heavily to keep unwanted email out of my inbox in the first place such as newsletters that I have tried, unsuccessfully, to unsubscribe from.

Filters are a great way of reducing the amount of email that you have to process in the first place and secondly, increasing your ability to process it speedily allowing you to get on with your important work.

3. Mailinator

Mailinator's tagline is "let them eat Spam" - a playful take on the infamous Marie Antoinette quote. Want to try out a new app or access a free report but know you will be deluged by marketing messages? Try Mailinator instead.

You don’t even need to set up an account. Just use your Mailinator email address (e.g. SineadHatesSpam@mailinator.com) to sign up for those free goodies and keep the autoresponders out of your inbox for good.

Mailinator is a genius little app that can save you the time and hassle of unwanted marketing messages flooding your inbox and drowning out your important email.

4. Canned Responses

Ever find yourself writing the same email response over and over again? Save time with Gmail's Canned Responses. Simply write out your set reply and save it as a Canned Response. Next time you get asked the same question, use this feature to instantly reply either manually or by using it as an autoresponder.

If, like me, you use Gmail for multiple email accounts, you can also use Canned Responses for inserting different email signatures for each email address.

5. AwayFind

AwayFind is one of those apps that you wonder how you ever lived without it. It is one of the best ways I have found of getting out of your email and getting on with your important work without the fear of missing that important request from your boss or client. If my clients are suffering from email overload but feel they cannot neglect their email for more than a few minutes at a time, I always recommend they take a look at AwayFind.

AwayFind works by sending you an update by phone, SMS or Instant Messaging if you have received an email that you have designated as 'important', for example, from your boss, from a particular client, or perhaps marked Urgent.

A great new feature introduced last year was a free iPhone app which sends push notifications direct to your phone with the details of the email so you don't even have to open your inbox to take action.

These are my current favourite 'hacks' for super-charging your email. Do feel free to share yours in the comments.