How to sort out your emails on your iPhone with one swipe

If you've had a good holiday and successfully switched off, then returning to work means wading through a backlog of unread emails. Think of it as a tax on your time off. But there is a hack to avoid this and have a more streamlined September by filtering out unsolicited nonsense email. You need to get with the VIPs.

Apple iPhones have a function called VIP mailbox, which puts emails you are expecting into a separate mailbox, meaning you can leave the main one unchecked and not worry. Just click on the email address of the person you want to hear from (or have to for work reasons) and tap “add to VIP” and their messages will go in a new box called VIP.

It might be hidden from view — VIPs are notoriously high maintenance — so if you can’t see it tap edit on the upper right of the Mailboxes screen and click “make visible” next to VIP. You can also enable push notifications to never miss a VIP missive. Gmail has a similar function on its app — go to settings and choose “bundles that you want to be notified by”.

You might want to go one step further and not bother reading or writing emails at all. In that case, turn to Fluenty, left, an obedient AI engine which can send replies that read like they have been written by you, without you doing a thing (fluenty.co). It was trained by reading 700 million online conversations. It analyses your texts, Google Hangouts, Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger and generates replies. You can vet them if you like before sending as a precautionary measure.

Communication is easier if you outsource it and filter out the noise.