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 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
@kyle the nice thing about #notmuch (even if using only INBOX) is it's speed.