It's kinda like the separation of Church and State for me *g*
I try as much as possible have the people I chat with on my flist, and everything of a fic/meta/icons/art nature to my inbox. That way I can keep up more easily with what my friends are doing in one place, and then pop over to the inbox when I want to read fic and stuff.
It may also sound a little rude but it's not meant that way - I can delete things from my inbox when I've read/looked at it and hopefully commented on it, but if it's on my flist it stays there forever, which I don't like.
It works pretty much most of the time.