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'
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.
@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.