Many years ago, Porter attended a course taught by Bill Oncken, which added at least two phrases to his vocabulary: "Don't be a monkey-picker-upper," and "Feed it, or shoot it, but don't let it starve to death." The first advises against meddling in tasks (monkeys) that don't belong to you, especially after you've delegated them. The second requires you to work on tasks, or scrub them, but never let them languish.
I have a backblog of over 100 items about which I want to write—and that's only the ones in my bookmark list, which are less important than those on my mental list. Flush from success with whacking my e-mail inbox from over 200 down to less than 30, I feel Bill Oncken's ghost hovering over my shoulder and challenging me to take on the backblog.
If these were real monkeys, the ASPCA would have had me arrested months ago. Some of them have already died of starvation; all I must do is dispose of the bodies. Some intrigued me at one time, but I now don't find them worth the time and effort; these I will happily execute with a click of the delete key. Some remain healthy enough to go into a "priority pen" until they can be tended to properly...after I extend Oncken's options a step further: I intend to take most of these monkeys and turn them loose to forage on their own.
Thus I am reviving my "Casting the Net" series, and you will see, in the coming days, posts with several short comments and associated links. I hope to put in enough detail to enable readers to decide quickly whether it's a subject worth pursuing or ignoring, but you won't get the detailed commentary and quotations I normally like to include.
It's either that, or declare blog bankruptcy.
