Two weeks ago I went public (or social) with my intention shed some weight.

My thinking was that sharing my progress with 350 of my dearest friends on Twitter would make me think twice about skipping the gym or devouring donuts. Heck, just twittering my weight was a big hurdle.

The Results

First of all, I'm pleased to say, it has worked splendidly thus far. I'm down to 233.2 from 240.1 pounds. I'm eating better, drinking water, and exercising. I'm battling a cold today, but overall, I feel great.

There's a lot in front of me, but it's good to know that even modest (and realistic) changes can have an impact.

Glitches in the experiment

There was some backsliding on the gym part and I didn't Twitter all of the details as I had promised. Twitter's reliability was a small factor here. I also didn't want to annoy the heck out of those who are kind enough to follow me. And frankly, I feel odd about publicly congratulating myself for doing what I should be doing and what many people do normally.

To solve the over-twittering problem, I'm setting up a alternate account for the details and will tweet a link to it daily from my regular account. That way I can keep record/diary of what I'm up to without annoying people... any more than I normally do. I really think reporting is an important element.

Social Pressure

I felt substantial pressure knowing that people might be paying attention. It's odd that the likelihood of a shorter life isn't as compelling as public opinion.

From here

There's another week until my original commitment expires. I'll tighten up the execution and, hopefully, have an even better final result to report next week.

After that, I'll make a more specific commitment ...publicly.

So please keep following me on Twitter and send some encouragement my way... even if I don't know you... especially if I don't know you.

I'm digging Firefox 3. Everything seems to working well. I have one minor suggestion, though. The icon should be a hair smaller. Hey, when I said "minor", I meant it!

Adam Betts has taken care of that. Check out his much improved version of the icon.

For me, bookmarking comes in three forms:

Social. If you want to store bookmarks online or share them with fake internet friends, del.icio.us and ma.gnolia are the tools to use. (Ma.gnolia is to del.icio.us what Pownce is to Twitter. Better, but not the standard.)

Quick access. This the stuff in your toolbar that you access for work or fun everyday... or every five minutes.

Reference. These are bookmarks that you need for a project. A swipe file. Ideas. Stuff you want to review sooner rather than later.

The third category is tricky. You don't necessarily want to store a link (that could die) online or even recommend it to others. You also don't need to add it to a list of meaningless links in your bookmarks folder, menu, toolbar, sidebar, or what have you.

Journler, the brilliant Yojimbo, and Evernote are good tools for stuff in this category.

But there's an even simpler solution, friends.

Here's what I do (in Safari)...