For a long while I’ve had a general policy of keeping my inbox empty. I’d let replies and actions sit for a while sometimes, but the appeal of a clean, white page when I leave Gmail is too great to let lapse for too long. What I haven’t had was a methodology for keeping that inbox clutter down and staying on top of everything. Inbox Zero came to my attention again today (it keeps popping up everywhere) and that has all changed.

Simply, Inbox Zero is a set of “skills, tools, and attitudes” for maintaining an empty and manageable inbox. A lot of the tips seem like common sense once we encounter them, but most of us are applying some simple methods that can save us time and keep our focus on things we value more than dealing with e-mails. “Act now or delete” becomes a liberating mantra for avoiding being bogged down by e-mails.

I’m now working on having my RSS feed reading work similarly. My ideal is that when I encounter something interesting among my feeds I read it and then either move on, add it to my del.icio.us bookmarks, or blog about it.

Here’s a great video of Merlin Mann, the guy behind Inbox Zero, talking to employees at Google:

Poe has been lying low in recent years – her last release, Haunted, was in 2000 – but has launched a new project at Repoezessed collecting recorded accounts of dreams, presumably for inclusion on a new album. The site asks for submissions of MP3s containing spoken accounts of contributors’ dreams with the prompt, “I had a dream that…”.

Poe has a history of including spoken recordings in her music. Haunted was a themed album made with recordings of her late father, Tad Danielewski. Haunted was a powerful and moving album and owed much to Poe’s skillful use of these recordings. Because of this precedence and my deep admiration of Poe in general, I’m very excited to see what she’s up to.

Above is the video for Poe’s first hit, “Hello”. Poe’s most recent released works are five tracks that can be found on the first two Conjure One albums.

Last night I began reading a new blog on the integral scene, Integral News and Views, where I found an interview with Robert Augustus Masters. Masters is an integral writer and therapist who places emphasis on living an integral life. His eloquence is extraordinary and he gives some of the clearest descriptions of just what being integral means to our lives.

This is an important reminder to those of us who are engaged in building an integral life and forming an integral life practice. An ILP, however it is structured, takes into consideration each of those “physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social dimensions” of our lives and strengthens our capacities in each of them. When not following an ILP, it’s very easy to become wrapped up in aspects of our lives that seem to dominate.

As a student, the cognitive part of my life is always demanding a lot of time and attention, and my physical well-being suffers when I don’t take steps to include resistance training and walking in my life. Likewise, when relational demands come to dominate, my meditation practice diminishes. One of the great challenges in living an integral life is being mindful of the many dimensions and capacities we have and must work to strengthen if we wish to live at the edge of our potentials. And then comes the actual work of practice.

To think with greater clarity, to love with greater skill, to feel with discernment and authenticity, to hone our bodies and enrich our environment, none of these should come at the expense of the other and each should be given time, effort and acknowledgment. If we are to better ourselves and our world in meaningful, lasting and exciting ways we must live integrally. Being integral demands a lifestyle that addresses our fragmentation, as Masters clarifies:

Also from Robert Augustus Masters is “What is ‘Integral’?“, a call, in part, to “do whatever is needed to make ‘integral’ a fitting term for how we are actually living.”

Video offerings online can be frustratingly hard to keep track of without a program like Miro. When I find a video podcast I enjoy, I just add it to my list of subscriptions on Miro and it downloads as soon as new episodes are released. If I often search for something on YouTube, I’ll just add the search to Miro and it will keep me updated on new videos. I can sit down and watch when I have the time and know everything has been taken care of so that I can just enjoy the videos. The interface is intuitive and the content offered through promoted channels is superb.

The best software products combine ease of use, aesthetics and wide functionality. When it comes to video, I rely on Miro to deliver most of what I watch online because it is the best combination of those three aspects of quality I’ve found. In addition to this, being open source, free and cross-platform (Miro supports Linux, MacOS and Windows) makes it a natural fit for me.

Miro provides a healthy model for what internet video delivery should be. It has rich features that make it easily one of the best video products available, and because it is open source and has a strong community behind it, it’s always improving. Free, fast, efficient, fun and beautiful can describe the software we choose to use, and with Miro available that choice is an easy one to make.

Channels I watch on Miro:
Geek Brief – “Geek Brief TV is Shiny, Happy Tech News.”
Seed – Seed magazine’s video feed
Pulp Secret – “the world’s first comic book network”
Marvel/DC – parody “playing in Marvel and DC’s sandboxes”
Integral Naked – Integral Naked’s free YouTube channel, filled with superb content from the leading edge
Boing Boing TV – strange video from across the ‘net
Galacticast – “a comedy show parodying all the worlds of geek-dom”
Ask a Ninja – Ninja comedy at its best.
Pink: The Series – “Pink is a serialized dark comedy produced specifically for a web-based audience. … Think of it as a live-action graphic novel.”

Hot on the heals of Radiohead’s brilliant In Rainbows, Saul Williams just released his new album, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!, to the world through the ‘net. He ups the ante by releasing the album in a lossless FLAC format, as well as MP3 and OGG. It’s such a pleasure to be able to hear two of the best albums released this year without the hassle of middlemen and unnecessary hindrances like chunks of plastic and dinosaur promotion methods. Won’t it be wonderful if this direct method of delivering music takes off?

Delivery aside, this is a magnificent album. NiggyTardust! is the result of a collaboration between Saul and Nine Inch Nail’s Trent Reznor, and both are in fine form. As the title might suggest, this album holds a strange mix. Saul’s lyrics are richer with meaning and eloquence than ever as he again plays with mysticism, hip-hop and other disparate ingredients in a way that is unmatched. Reznor’s contribution gives the flavour of his past work to the album and his expertise in arrangement and production give it a distinct solidity. And there’s a sharp rendition of “Sunday Bloody Sunday”!

It’s just $5 USD (something minuscule for us Canadians) if you want to pay and free if you don’t, so there’s no excuse not to give it a listen, is there?

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