He clarifies what he means by spam immediately after the sentence you quote: "So the main problems for geeks are that they’re signed up to so many services tha

He clarifies what he means by spam immediately after the sentence you quote: "So the main problems for geeks are that they’re signed up to so many services that they get inundated with notifications, monthly newsletters, automated messages, and shreds of spam that manage to get through GMail’s spam filters." "Spam" was probably the wrong word to describe emails that are automated or informational, but requested; however, your view doesn't appear to disagree with his. If your problem is that you have too much email from real people that must be evaluated and responded to, your problem is not with email at all, but rather with human organization. You have too many people relying on your input for too many things and that has nothing to do with technology. Offload work to an assistant, or outsource some functions, or grant increased decision making responsibility.