First thing I do is have my mail forward from gmail to an imap account on our dreamhost dev server. This is because I don’t like how gmail handles flagging. But essentially, I setup Mail.app to check my mail via imap. I leave my Inbox in threaded view and I use that for looking up old conversations. The crux of what I do differently is I have a smart folder named “To Do” that I am in most of the time and essentially my real inbox. Here are it’s settings:

Thus, this smart folder shows anything I’ve flagged and anything that is new. Also, when you unflag or read something it doesn’t disappear. So really, this todo folder shows all recent stuff as well, until you click to look at a new folder. In addition, I color code emails too using groups in my address book. Green is BKWLD, blue is friends, orange is family, etc. So, my todo mailbox ends up looking like:

This way I can quickly keep track of new things and stuff that still needs attention. And I achieve the zero stuff in inbox serenity if I can work through all the flagged and unread emails without having to actually move or delete things.