"Power users" is an old technology term used to describe people who took the time to learn all the bells and whistles and shortcuts to speed up their processing of email each day.
You may not hear the term as frequently, but everyone on the internet still contends with a ton of email. Are you adapting or just trying to get caught up each day?
Try making these changes, you should notice significant results.
Learn how to use web mail - Microsoft Outlook offers it, Google offers it. It's faster than the desktop application. It's infinitely more portable. It won't bog down your computer.
learn keyboard shortcuts - Outlook has them , Google has them, they will save an absolute ton of time especially as you're pruning your inbox each day for items that you don't want to see.
learn how to filter unwanted messages - you'll continue to receive the same types of messages but if you're moving them out of your inbox each day, have your mail provider do this for you.Outlook does this with rules, Google does this with filters. Search for unsubscribe links in messages to easily locate mailing lists you want to leave.
Use TAGS instead of FOLDERS - archive your messages after tagging them, but don't take the time to drag messages into folders. It's just not necessary if you learn how to use tags properly, and tags are significantly more versatile: an email can only go into a single folder, but you can attach multiple tags to an arbitrary number of messages
use text-expanding tools such as TextExpander to automatically insert commonly used text such as address, biography, company background, marketing blurbs, or anything that you don't want to have to manually type over and over.
Email needn't be a huge time suck every day. Professionals are able to go through hundreds of messages a day in just a short time by using these techniques. You may not consider yourself a tech pro, but isn't it worth saving hours every year on repetitive tasks?