E-mail Priorities

My general rule is: the more time a sender has spent composing her e-mail, the more time I'm willing to spend processing it. Regular mail sent to me personally always gets higher priority than e-mail.

Some features that decrease the attention I'm going to devote to an e-mail message:

The information requested is available on my web page, e.g. "do you have a meeting Thursday at 1 pm?" Yes, according to my work schedule.
Broadcast messages with many recipients, from mailing lists, etc. with me on cc.
Pointers: Forwards, pointers to webpages, etc., especially without cover message.
Attachments, especially long ones, especially ones I have to print out.

Some features that increase the attention I'm going to devote to an e-mail message:

E-mail addressed to me only.
Sender is from SFU.
For pointers and attachments: a cover message explaining why you think the item you are sending is relevant to me. For example:
"I saw that you published a paper on the following question ... An unsolved problem in your approach is .... This problem is solved in the attached paper (see especially Section x). In a couple of sentences, the solution is as follows ..."