Around a month ago a challenge was extended to Joel. We'd both work on independent projects for 6 months and, at the end of the challenge, the project with the most revenue "wins."

A month has passed and I've done a good job of cleaning up the apartment, trying to stay on the ball at work, planting tomato plants, upgrading the Operating Systems on old computers, jailbreaking smartphones, and reorganizing the refrigerator: basically anything other than tackling this project.

It's the old "swallow the frog first" problem. If there's barely enough time to do all the little things: how can you tackle the big things? (Answer: start with the big things).

Bay Area Consultant Joel seems to have trucked along fine over the last month and posted a blog update yesterday where he describes his successes and forward momentum.

That's great. However, I must crush him.

So, I'm going to take this week to get things moving in the right direction. Hopefully next week I won't have to use an analogy involving bowels to describe how things moved.

This week my tasks are:

• Finish reading The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. I'm on page 175 or so of 225... Better have that done tonight.
• Finish reading Finish What You Start. I must finish that book: it has sat on my coffee table (unfinished) for the past 2 months. What a black fly in my Chardonnay, don'tcha think?
• If 'Finish What You Start' is interesting enough, create an outline for next Toastmaster's speech.
• Return both these books to San Mateo library on Saturday, along with that Effective Meeting book I never read.
• Keep the TV disconnected.
• Get the BBQ off our old neighbor's porch in San Mateo.
• Do not pay attention to the tomato plants except for two minutes of watering twice per day. The plants are doing fine: giving them any more attention is just a self-indulgent waste of time.

If, err, When I get those tasks done, will my plate be clear to start the project that will run Joel's ClikClock revenue figures into the ground? Hope so. Time's ticking.

So here I go... Into the future. If all goes well, I'll have a gameplan for success posted by Sunday.