The past few days have SUCKED. There’s really no better way to explain them. Sure - there were a few bright spots - and I did my best to savor them, but otherwise… well, this certainly isn’t the place to go into details, but trust me: suckage.

Tonight, as I prepped mentally for the workweek, I decided to recommit to an earlier promise I made to myself - that a portion of each day would be devoted to learning. I think it was my recent SXSW experience that reminded me how important this concept is. We should never stop learning.

So I spent an hour with Merlin Mann, learning about his Inbox Zero concept. Well, not personally…I watched his Google Tech Talk from 2007 online. And it was fantastic. Did I try to multi-task while I listened to his presentation? Nope. I plugged in my headphones and blocked out the rest of my world and just soaked it in. Took a few notes. Thought about how I could apply some of his ideas to my own insane inbox. It was terrific.

The cool thing about spending an hour learning is, well, you REALLY learn something. It’s not the same as spending a few minutes reading a blog article or flipping through a business magazine. Committing an hour to absorbing information and learning a new skill is a gift to yourself.

So that’s where I was tonight. I was here, now, with my laptop and Merlin Mann.