[pjb]

I have one project, staff scheduling, where the context doesn't really matter but when I sit down to working on the schedule I'll use whatever contexts are called for (laptop, work, phone, etc) and work OF out of Project mode with a dedicated perspective. Now this project may be more regimented than your work flow but I have start dates to keep future months invisible. The Project Filter is Active, the Availability Filter is Available. If there is an actionless project (Month) appearing with grey type in the action list it is because there are future Remaining actions for that active project (which is a good reminder that there will be more to do there). If I switch the Availability Filter to Remaining then I see what's on my plate to get done in grey type.

I do use Contexts for everything, but rely on default contexts as much as possible. If you don't, then just be sure to the preference to clean up the inbox without requiring a Context.

Could you use start and due dates to convey your yellow and red info?

There's nothing intrinsically wrong about OF working out of Project mode if that is how you are working in your head.