My email flow has dramatically improved ever since I created a macro and folder hook in mutt so that by default I only see new, unopened, or flagged messages. I don't move opened emails from my INBOX elsewhere so no INBOX 0.
Now I only see emails I need to take some sort of action on. I can filter messages other ways, then press '.o' whenever I want to resume this view.
If you are a mutt user, use these two options to your .muttrc:
macro index .o "l(~N|~O|~F)\n"
folder-hook . push '.o'
@kyle Thanks for sharing. I find it interesting to see how others manage their Inbox. I'm always looking for a better approach but forced to work within the confines of Outlook because of my job.
@kyle I think the litmus test if a email flow has improved is to check with the people you *interact* with if they notice any difference. Otherwise it might have improved for you but not the people you correspond with 😃 .
#notmuch has been a great help for me to find emails, works nicely in mutt (https://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2011/01/how_to_use_Notmuch_with_Mutt/)
@agx Interesting! notmuch seems like a much more sophisticated version of a simple approach I wrote about in Linux Journal many years ago:
https://www.linuxjournal.com/magazine/hack-and-mutt-and-virtual-folders
I should note that this is a slightly modified form of macros I had been using for a LONG time inspired by this blog post:
http://www.jukie.net/~bart/blog/20090608232531
But defaulting to the '.o' view instead of the '.i' view, and adding flagged messages to the '.o' view has made all the difference.