There are many tutorials out on the web that tell you how filter the junk mail out with filters, and I'm not going to attempt to explain it here. Instead, do a little searching around and try to find a tutorial. It makes it simpler, and you can save more time. Now make all but the most important lists send to that email account. It is a simple matter to change these lists to send to my lists address rather than my normal email address.
Most email programs can handle more than one email account.
If you don't have one, try Green Mail , Outlook Express , or Bare Bones Software's MailSmith . If your email client is any good, it will allow you to have it automatically move your email into a certain folder depending on what account it came in through. This is pretty easy to do, as filters are generally straightforward. Subscribe to individual message versions of mailing lists I know this may sound weird, but it actually helps with the organization of email. If you get the digest version of a mailing list, all the messages come later, and if you want to keep a couple of the messages, you don't have to edit the entire digest.