God bless Peter Drucker.    (Whatever is measured tends to improve).   And god bless you for reading this stuff.  I’m using my own shorthand for this, not out of fear, but out of unwillingness to explain WTF I’m doing.  

First:  General:

1. Time Woke Up.
2. Weight
3. Calories In
4. Calories Burned (Excluding Base Metabolic Rate; just use the  #’s provided and a walk = 110/mile)
5. Cardio Minutes (realizing that there is a big difference in quality in a good vs. bad cardio minute)]  (workout will take 150 minutes with drive/etc.)
   

(5 things) total commitment:

Goal by EOY: 38# lost:  19/month thru the holidays: 19/4.3 = 4.4 #/week.

Goals here:  measure when I wake up, plot it.   Dreamlife would have me waking up at 5am each day, but I also dig a pot of coffee around 7pm and they aren’t congruent.

Next:  Writing:

1. MP Done  ~20 minutes
   
2. GC Done here:  ~20ish minutes
   
3. FT Done  (1 essay/day written till we have ‘em all)  ~40 minutes
   
4. SP Words  ~30 minutes minimum
   
5. Ghost Blogging Done (2 posts complete)  ~30 minutes when assigned.
   
6. Guest Post Written (1xd)   ~30 minutes.
   

6 Things.   Should take:  170 minutes.   If I get up at 6am, I can be done by 9am. Real goal is more on FT/SP but this is a reasonable & tenable minimum standard.  Sometimes sooner, baby, sometimes sooner.  load= 15hrs/week.  I can also get ahead with this in downtime, I guess.

RRN Marketing Plan (Behaviors + Other)

1. Blog Post (1xD)/Site Writing.  (25 minutes)
   
2. +Project Summaries (as completed) (15 minutes a day)
   
3. If my goal is to hit 50k/revenue, I need then to do 2x 2500/week/5k/week.
4. 15 Contacts (not counting them in seperate categories for now)  90 minutes.
   
5. LI Questions (1xd)  5 minutes.
   
   1. Looking for freelance writers.
      
6. Blog Comments (10xD-20 minutes)
   
   1. Freelance Folder
   2. Freelance Switch
7. Craig’s list responses: 10xD  (This is mostly to test responses). 30 minutes.
   
8. Projects Started
9. Projects Finished
10. $ collected.
    

185 minutes.

RRN Goal By EOY = $56,000 total $$ billed and $20,000 retained.

7-9 committed hours a day.  This is doable.

That’s only 10  things

21 things to track.  That’ manageable.  A bunch are quick.  (LI questions/time woke up/cardio) I think I make a couple of spreadsheets; combining ‘writing’ and general’ & leaving RRN apart from it.

[criteria: done by bands you have or should have heard of]

10.  Such Great Heights- The Postal Service/Iron and Wine:  When a song can be done electrically and acoustically, it’s probably pretty good.

9.]  Ben Folds: Song For the Dumped:  Yes, Virginia, the piano can Rock.

8.]  Mysterious Ways: U2.  On your knees, boy.

7.]  Untouchable FaceL Ani DiFranco:   Nobody alive covers the range of emotions as well as Ani.

6.] Certain Songs: Hold Steady:  Closing time was too saccharine, but this song paints the end of the bar night picture better than anything on the planet.

5.]  Come As You Are, Nirvana: An invokation and invitation.

4. ]  Spirit of the Radio: Rush  No song on the planet has a more energizing guitar opening.

3.]  Like A Rolling Stone:  Bob.   It is that good.  Everyone’s pretty much right about it.

2.)  Spirits in the Night- Bruce Springsteen:  Oh, man, the snapshot of your early 20′s.

1.)  Everlong – Foo Fighters:  The cadence, the desparation, the driving beat, the fact that it kicks ass acoustically and with the whole nine.   There is no better song, and nobody can say different.

My all time favorite album is Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness by the Smashing Pumpkins.   Everything about it is a genX manifesto, from the self indulgent double disk treatment to the whine-sneer of Billy Corgan’s voice.   The landscape of the record is amazing–150ish minutes of wandering from hard rocking tunes from the 70′s (Bullet w/Butterfly, Muzzle) to songs (porcelina) that were truly lovely and kind.   I’m sure that I don’t understand all of Billy’s intentions with the record, only that it was a title shot and to me it won.   None of the songs were my favorite, having just DL’d the American Gothic EP you can see hints of the latter in the former.

Anyway, the Late 90′s were a pretty confusing time for me.  I was totally without identity, trying to get the approbation of my parents (while still rejecting their workaday values).   Was in my early 20s, and I remember the days and the women (when I was 23….it was), the apartments and the bars and everything vividly when I hear some songs.   The list below isn’t a list of ‘favorites’ by any means, it’s a list of songs that I deliberately listened to and sometimes didn’t deliberately listen to, but always takes me back.

10.  My Philosophy: Ben Folds Deliberate Listen.  My friend Will introduced me to them.   I’d probably also want to include The Rascal King on this list.

9.  The Poet Game By Greg Brown. WYEP out of Pittsburgh introduced me to this chestnut, and GB is probably the most underrated songwriter in existence.  I remember this song very well.   And I linked you to a reasonably good cover.  Better voice, but less expressive than GB’s original.

8.  Summertime- The Sundays. This was the song that got me on napster, actually.   I loved this tune so much.   And it was a hot little chick, wasn’t it?

7. Radiation Vibe: Fountains of Wayne I remember the summer of 1997 in DC, running across the bridges and rollerblading down hills.  One of my very favorite songs before and after.

6. Disarm/Today: Pumpkins Siamese Dream didn’t do it for me like Mellon Collie, but these two songs lifted out of it are still magnificent.   They are the same song, I used to go from 3 skip skip 6 all the time on some CD player I had.

5.  The Cardigans: Love Fool. No, I didn’t like this song, but it was everywhere.

4. Red Hot Chili Peppers:  Roller Coaster ubiquitous.   Maybe “music is my aeroplane” should be here, that takes me back.

3.  Republica- Ready To Go dunno when this song came out, but it was on a mix tape.  I didn’t hear it a lot then, but it takes me back.

2.  Dave Matthews- Crash. In a bit of foolishness I was listening to this song in my DC apartment in the early summer of 1997.   I got punched in the arm because I told the girl I was with that it reminded me of someone else.   She never spoke to me again, ever.   I deserved that for being obtuse.   I remember the original girl in the late spring of 1996 or even 1995 (don’t remember exact dates memory = fuzzy).  It dawned on both of us that This Was a Song About Sex and It Was Dirty.  we were both innocent.   I had only heard the single on the radio as background music.

1.  Third Eye Blind: Losing A Whole Year:   This is it.  About how I felt, just sorta cheerful and then looking back, and lonely.  Wanting someone to dig me like I dug myself, and like me for the RIGHT reasons, not just cause i was around.   And not want to change me or parse what I was saying.

I’d put counting crows and cranberries on the list but that was more of a mid 90′s thing.  Most of this music was popular, and I didn’t broaden my tastes much out of the conventional stuff until probably 2000.   Still, thsese are the songs that bring me to a place and a state of mind so quickly.

I think 1997-1999 was when I was at my absolute craziest I’ve been.  (First year of marriage was close).   I’ve always had demons (who doesn’t), and the whole time was giddy and euphoric–probably like the housing boom felt in 2005.   I remember seemingly every day something new being possible, and it’s probably still happening, but I had the sense of wonderment that I haven’t found since then.   But when you’re 22, the whole world is a blank canvas.  you don’t know it’s OK to do things that are different so you try to keep your options open by not being authentic, etc, etc.

Anyway, this is probably 1997 and 1998 to me, I don’t know when the songs actually came out, really, (2 second lookup) but this is the top of mind stuff that I hear and saw.

This blog is now being written for an audience of one–maybe two.  I’ll continue to write for public consumption on Bloodhound, lenderama, cicerone, freelancefolder, and my new stuff at rightrightnow.com which will be launched tomorrow or the next day.

By far not exhaustive:

1. I have to do what i will do.
2. I have to be world class in fitness.
3. Fitness should take up 10-15% of my total energy time and thought.
4. Fitness includes eating right?
5. Do I wanna be a vegetarian?

Some things I think I’ve decided:

1. Competition brings out the best in me, the ruthless high “D” side.  (see DiSC).   Let’s do it.
2. Bythat I mean, triatholons etc.
3. I need to work out w/wife.
4. I need to not ever drink any alcohol, until–at the least–I’m at a generally acceptable weight.   I don’t stop drinking when alcohol is available and will blast through a six pack, or even a twelve pack in almost no time…when there’s nothing on the schedule.   This isn’t a huge lifechanger, I seriously drink maybe once or two times a week, but I don’t need the calories.  Anyone that serves me or attempts to serve me alcohol that’s read this will be treated with ruthlessness

Get out yer tin foil hats.   Because I’ve gone off the reservation again.

It was 2005, the first time the thought occured to me.   I was buying a coffee-and-paper at my local BP.  I was asked to present some ID.  It was again, for my protection.   I said, “golly, do you have a rash of people committing bank fraud $5 bucks at a time?” Another woman made me trapse out to my car to secure my ID for my purchase of $21 bucks.   This was back in the willy nilly lassiez faire days in 2005, remember, when houses sold at an average of 4 hours on the market, and banks were lining up to give pan handlers good terms on a loan.

Both times, I was given some sort of, “well, it’s for your protection” deal.   As if I was being done this big favor by this chick that had asked for my ID.  “Oh, you claim it’s for my protection?  Then I can’t say shit, can I.  Because it was for me. And since you were helping me…I can’t say anything.”   Magnanimous, she was, helping me be protected from fraud.   She was even instilling fear.    But really, in the wake of the bailout hand over of our labor to the banking interests, does it seem strange that our society is giving us obedience tests in preparation for the government to fill more space and usurp more power from us?

I might be alone (I’m not, check the video) in thinking that the reason we switched to check cards from checks was to get more convenience and speed.   We’d be insulated from having to check ID because the vendors would know the funds were there.   My thinking now was that it was to centralize transactions through one chokepoint that can be easily watched.   The inconvenience of cash puts more power into the hands of fewer people who can wipe out billions without much of a problem.

Remember this:

My thought now is that these obedience tests are to weaken our defenses and get us ready for ‘papers please,’ type security tests..that no longer raise our ire or outrage.   I don’t think that the government itself is in on the deal, I just think that it’s a tool best used and manipulated by those that would like to enslave us.   A decent, free man who loves his life has no concept of gettting the government  While fraud and identity theft are a big spectre, there are lots of times when we gird ourselves against risk with a cure that is of dubious benefit.

-booster seats.

-seat belts (click it or ticket has done more to make me not have seatbelts than anything else).

-Friggin’ texas forced immunizations

-unlawful gambling.  GAMBLING.

We’re reminded time and again how we need the gov’t to protect us.  They are doing this for our benefit, citizens, so you have to obey, obey obey.   I don’t think that there’s a global conspiracy.  I may be naive.  I think that though, every man, in every position of power he is in has as part of his nature, the tendency to seek to get others to obey.   The government is an all to willing accomplice, because the nature of leviathan is that it grows to consume men.

As for a ‘practical’ response to this type of stuff, without getting to ‘black hellicoptery’ or ‘new world order-y’  I don’t know really what the answer is.   I know that every time I do something and make something cool, it increases the amount of energy that Leviathan has to capture.  I believe we can out grow and outpace Leviathan, and win by out hustling it.

This ends the black helicopter, tinfoil hatted rants of CJ.  On to your regularly scheduled programming about Goals, God, Freelancing, & Weight Loss.

So Right Right now is happening, soon. Once I grind out the current batch of projects, I’ll be on track to get the site up and launch it in earnest. I’ve been using Basecamp and I just started using Highrise.

I really, really like Heap and Torch, but they need a level of polish that they don’t currently have. Those applications are so tauntingly close to perfect in many ways that it’s hard to skip them, but they’re not ready yet. Torch particularly lags behind heap in what it can do…so I have to use something else because I have to have software that just simply works. I predict though, that if the current usability issues can be solved, that Heap + Torch will be world-beatingly good. An email based ecosystem rules. I just don’t happen to agree with the way that they perceive to do lists at present.

And Basecamp is oxygen simple. I don’t like the way that it perceives due days, and the lack of ability to globally assign all due dates in a list to some later date. But it’s easy enough to use, and I’m somewhat over my hotkey bias. The hotkey bias was based on the fact that I used a celeron based dying, windows PC, and a miss click with my mouse would cause me to be in some neverland for 15 minutes.

But what I wanted to write about today was process stuff. More aptly, designing a pre-and post project checklist that gets you where you’re going and ensures your company learns and grows and gets more valuable over time. Anyway, here is the current ‘post project’ wrap up that we’ll do on each project:

• final QC Review: spelling, all bullet points and loose code tied down.
• Change any passwords shared externally and record passwords
• Evaluate team members based on: hitting deadlines, communication
• Evaluate areas where we can improve on future projects.
• Thank all team members for participation and share evaluation
• see if there are further projects that we can help with.
• solicit & record feedback from team members on how to improve process
• look at things that were in this spec that can be added to general templates.
• Look to see if any opportunities for mutual profit exist as a result of this project.
• Gain client testimonial whenever possible. If not possible, ask what we’d have to earn
• to get one.
• Send all files to client in a zip file for their records and future use.
• Create Project P+L.
• Do we have any permanent resources in project that are reusable?
• Add resources to code library.
• Blog Project case study: Start Date, Due Date, Done Date, Team Members, Client
• Happy?

This is not exhaustive, and we don’t want to be plagued with mission creep. my guess is that this list will get bigger for a while and then get really small. But it’s what to think about because when we do a project, we must get better at our jobs, each time.

There is a perverse incentive that programmers (who need jobs) to be sluggish with projects. By saying that someone doesn’t intend to work somewhere very long, it eliminates that. By getting world class people that are using this stuff to fund and further their careers (in lieu of people that can’t get jobs elsewhere), we’re saying: hey, we’re going to improve your processes and systems, we’re leaving, and we’re unbiased because, while we’ll honor your money, we’re not in it to siphon money from you to us. We’re here to kick ass and make you better, and we’ll be gone. We hope to be invited back, but, a long term thing just isn’t us. Oh, yeah, and we’re not really into feature creep, we want to give you kick ass work quickly.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at with this thing, and I am actually executing and funding it so we’ll break out and start networking and getting customers.