I’ve enjoyed reading Mr. Bregman’s column for the Harvard Business Review for a good while and he has put together many of his columns into an excellent book dealing with goals, focus, distractions and getting the right things done. I am the first to admit to my business / self-help book compulsion. If there’s a book which talks about goals and ways to do things better, I will read it.

One of the nice things about this book is its progression from the macro to the micro. It starts by looking at a small number of things you should focus on for the upcoming year, things which would improve your life, both personally and professionally. From there, Mr. Bregman brings you down to the daily level and helps break down your to-do list with an eye towards the yearly focus. One great thing is his realization that things come up during the day which you need to deal with but don’t have any relation towards your overall yearly focus. He calls this the ‘Other 5%’ and it’s nice to have some place for it. If you can do 95% and leave room for this, you’ll be so much further along than most. Finally, the progression ends at what you are doing moment-to-moment. This is where everything either works or doesn’t. You can have the greatest plan in the world but if you don’t stay focused on it, it won’t do anything but laugh at you from afar.

Overall, I liked this book and look forward to continuing reading Mr. Bregman’s column and future books.

Since then, the company has grown, expanded our office space and overall just kept getting better. There’s been down parts as well but I’m not going to dwell on those now. This post is about the future, looking at the year behind me and looking forward to a year from now when I expect Chomp to be even bigger and better.

I’ve talked to the few people still there and it really is just a skeleton operation technically and eventually that will need to be cut. It really is too bad since there was always so much promise but really not as much execution.

All of this leaves EarthLink without a clear growth strategy. Once dial-up dies off, the company has no wireless or fixed infrastructure of its own to offer competing services. And even though cost-cutting has helped the company return to profitability, it won’t help solve the company’s fundamental problem, which is a lack of future strategy.

It’s actually the third time I’ve had a last day here which is pretty funny. I have a feeling though, there won’t be a fourth one. No, I’m not burning any bridges but let’s just say that things are a bit in flux around here.

I have worked with some amazing folks, learned a lot and was given freedom to investigate new and different technologies. You can’t ask for much more in a job but now is the time to make a move and that’s what I’m doing.

Monday, I start working at the Los Angeles Times. I’ll have much more to say on that after today.

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