There's a quick and easy step you can take: turn your junk e-mail filter from "Low" to "Enhanced".  At the lowest level Hotmail will delete the known junk e-mail before it even lands in your account.  There are, however, clever filters that deal with junk e-mail we haven't heard of yet... when you switch from "Low" to "Enhanced" you get the added benefit of Hotmail moving the mail we're not quite sure about into the junk e-mail folder for you to examine later.

To help protect yourself from junk e-mail:

Turn your junk e-mail filter to "Enhanced"

Cranking it up from low is the difference between "we know this is junk" and "we think this is junk." Hotmail gets rid of the things we know are junk... the things we think are junk we move to the junk e-mail folder... but only if your filter is set to "Enhanced."

Add your friends' e-mail addresses to your address book

You can import, use the contacts builder feature on the contacts page or simply check the box on the sent mail confirmation page.

Add other addresses to your safe list

Adding amazon.com addresses to your safe list but not your address book keeps your address book tidy but makes sure you receive your e-mails from Amazon.

When you receive junk e-mail in your inbox, select the junk e-mail and click the "junk" button

When you report the junk we missed the junk e-mail automatically goes into a system which trains our filters to be better in the future (be patient, though, it does take some time for the filters to learn, you won't see an immediate effect, but like exercise, it works over time).

Check your e-mail every day

This sound funny but it is really more of a psychological trick than anything else. If you check your Hotmail account every day you'll find that the amount of junk in your inbox is quite small and easy to deal with. When you take the task in small bites it's easier to stomach (and frankly, quite painless).

To turn your junk e-mail filter from 1 to 11:

1. Sign into Hotmail
2. Click the "Mail" tab
3. Click the "Options" link (it's at the top right, near "Help")
4. Click the "Junk E-Mail Protection" link
5. Click the "Junk E-Mail Filter" link
6. Select the "Enhanced" level
7. Click the "OK" button
8. Get less spam in your inbox

Too many steps? Try my direct link to your Junk E-Mail Filter Options.