Challenges

I was browsing through a teammate's blog last night, when a post about Challenges caught my eye. Like Foodie McBody, I love challenges. They are pretty much the only way I get anything done. That's why I sign up for races. However, sometimes I forget to challenge myself. Now that I've been reminded, here are a few challenges I'm planning to pursue:

• 15 minutes of cleaning (or tidying) every day. I think I saw this recommended on Crazy Aunt Purl before, but I've never implemented it. I hate cleaning, mostly because it always takes so long. I am going to try to make a commitment to do just a little bit every day. I am going to try to figure out an accountability path for this - I don't want to bore you with blog posts or facebook posts about my super exciting cleaning, but maybe I can record it in a sidebar of sorts.

• Complete a Coursera course. I have heard of MIT's open access courses before, but I'd never heard of Coursera until a friend/co-worker told me about it last week. She is taking a stats class with some others here at work, and they have an accountability group so that they actually complete it. This isn't real school, obviously, but you do get a certificate of completion at the end if you do the work. I have found several courses in which I'm interested, and I am currently choosing between two starting this week. (I want to do both but overloading myself probably won't help get the job done.)

• Train for a half marathon on June 8th including at least two days of strength a week (and maybe even one day of yoga). Given that this is only 6 weeks away, maybe I can actually maintain that commitment. Generally strength training shouldn't be part of the last month before a race, but although I do plan to use this race as a gauge of my fitness, I am not too worried about messing something up with strength training. (Note that I have not specified an amount of time that I will spend each session. Gotta start somewhere...)

If you are interested in completing any of these challenges with me, or in trying to hold me accountable (i.e. posting on my wall about whether I've done a core workout this week or what have I cleaned today), your participation would be most welcome! I love to have partners in crime. Since my first season of TNT, I have been mostly a failure in the stick to a schedule department, so I'm hoping to get back into the groove here.

Do you have any challenges I should know about? Or any methods of accountability?

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UPDATE: Check out my sidebar for a Joe's Goals tracking score. I'm aiming for 1-3 points per day and an average of 2 points per day in any given week. (7 points a week for cleaning, 5 for working on Coursera, and 2 for strength training.) Please yell at me if I'm not achieving these goals.