Like every other cartoonist in the world I have a hard time keeping ahead of deadlines. I love drawing, but it's work, and I never did like work. As long-time readers of this blog know, I keep making and breaking promises to get and stay ahead on strips.

I was discussing this with Sara last night and the two of us hit on what I think is a very doable baby-steps strategy. Upon arriving at work in the morning I will draw two strips before doing anything. No writing, email, web surfing, programming, bookkeeping, nothing. But as soon as they're done, I'm free to do whatever I want. I'll do this for two weeks, and then I'll up that number to three strips and keep it there. Three strips a day is the right number when you take into account speaking and conference absences, vacations, and various family emergencies that keep me away from my desk. Three a day will get me ahead and keep me ahead. But two is a great start.

I did it this morning, and the world is a brighter, sunnier place. Right now I'm fixing our email delivery to automatically remove people when their email addresses bounce too many times. It will also keep a better paper trail when people are added and removed so that we can track the history of any given subscriber. It's fun, interesting, necessary work, and my heart is happy knowing that the strips are already done.