I think I mentioned this a few months ago, but I’m currently working on redesigning this site. The default WordPress (the software that powers this blog) theme is nice and everything, but it’s the default. It’s ordinary. It’s commonplace. It’s prosaic. Truth is, though, I’ve been redesigning this site for more than four years. Part of that is due to a shift in purpose and focus. Four years ago, I fully intended to use this site as a promotional tool to showcase my freelance work to prospective clients. Since I’ve pretty much given up on freelance gigs these days, the current purpose of this site is to showcase my thoughts and photographs to friends, family, and (hopefully) the world.
Having said that, I’m aiming for absolute simplicity and minimalism with the new design so that my content comes through clearly. Enough about the new design, though; it’ll be here when it gets here. What I really wanted to talk about was taking things personally. It’s obvious that redesigning this site has become a labor of love for me. In fact, personal projects—I’m mostly referring to software and web-related projects, but this actually applies to pretty much everything I do—always manage to pull me in much more than work-related projects. That doesn’t mean that I do a sloppy job at work, either. I can do eight hours of high-quality client work and be perfectly happy with it, but doing the same thing for myself might take three or four times as long.
It’s true that I’m my own toughest critic, but at some point, you’ve got to say that enough is enough. You can tweak a lot of things for a long time, but eventually you need to capitulate and agree to keep chipping away on feature X during the next iteration. So that’s kind of where I’m at right now. I realize that I’m a perfectionist (recovering), but I’ve almost reached the point of “good enough” with my redesign. Give me a couple more weeks to put the final touches on and kick the tires a bit, and then I’ll flip the switch and invite public comments and criticism. I’ll try not to take it personally.
I figured you would be the kind to come up with your own theme. I’m surprised it’s been like this for this long. :-P