The Only Constant Is Change

Posted: 08 Sep 2015 05:30 AM PDT

Do you ever feel the need to make changes in your life and in your work so you can get to wherever it is you want to go? I know I do. Sometimes I even have the sense that I need to make major changes as opposed to minor ones.

Change can be difficult, but when I feel the need inside, I have to listen and I find it's best to make the changes no matter how large or how small. I took the last month away from writing for this site to listen to my inner needs and start implementing some changes I've known for awhile I should make.

Now that I'm back, I thought I'd give you a little more information about the time away along with some of the changes I've made and plan on making. I know I promised the start of a Sass series today, but I thought I should first offer more about why I took some time away. I'll start the series on Sass next week.

My Time Away

In my post announcing some time off I mentioned needing time for some personal and work related projects. I'll keep the personal projects personal and share a little about some of the work related projects that occupied my time.

One of the work related projects did involve this site. The site had been going down far too often and after several years, I didn't think that would change unless I moved to a new host.

In the process of moving the site I cleaned up a few things. I removed more than a third of the content that was here and I fixed a few things I'd been meaning to get to for months, if not years. Hopefully the site stays up more and works a little better now.

Another project involves my small business forum. For years, I've wondered what to do with it in terms of a business model. A few comments by a new member led to me think now was a good time and I started a conversation with a couple of friends about we could do with the site.

I'm not sure if the conversations will lead to anything, but we're talking regularly and I'm giving a few additional hours each week to the forum and the site we're going eventually create around it.

I'm Launching a New Site About Writing and Creativity

I've talked about transitioning from designer/developer to writer for a couple of years now and it makes sense for me to have a site dedicated to writing.

There are topics I often find myself wanting to write, but they don't belong on a design site and I end up not writing them. I want a place to publish some of the thoughts and stories I've been holding back for lack of a proper home.

I'm still in the planning stages for the site and I expect it'll be a few months time before I have the site live. For now I've set up a sign up form so you can be alerted when the site is ready.

I'll deliver a few extras to entice you to sign up, starting with a longer explanation for why I'm starting the site and what it will be about. I won't overwhelm you, but I'll probably send something once a month until the site is ready. In other words I'll be publishing articles via email for few months until the site is ready.

If you're here because you enjoy my writing or because you like the articles I write about creativity, productivity, and other non design and development topics, I think you'll like the new site I'm planning.

Again, it'll be a few months before the site is ready so sign up to know when it's live and for the few extras I'll deliver until that time.

What Do These Changes Mean for this Site?

As you might guess a new writing site and a potential site around my small business forum will require time and some of that time is going to come from the time I've been spending here.

Starting today I'll be publishing here once a week. I'm going to drop the Thursday podcast and post and move the Monday posts to Tuesday. The content I've been writing and recording for Thursdays will work better on the new writing site once that site is live.

As I mentioned, I've removed more than a third of the content that was here. It was mostly older posts that were about SEO and marketing. There was little traffic to any of them and they weren't relevant to a site about design and development.

I plan on removing more over the rest of the year and I want to reorganize what I decide to leave. My goal is to figure out the best way to make use of the content I ultimately decide to keep here on the site and to have the content be more focused on design and development.

Closing Thoughts

Sometimes I feel a strong need to make changes and in this case I needed some time away to process what I want to do and get started on some of the changes. I'm back after a month away and I'll continue writing design and development series, though do expect more changes to come.

This isn't the first time I've made significant changes to my work and personal life and I doubt it will be the last. This was one of those times where something inside was signaling I needed to make larger changes than usual and I've started the process with more changes to come.

Once again I want to remind you to sign up to be updated about the new writing site. If you enjoy my writing; if you enjoy the non design and development content I've published here, I think you'll like what I'm planning for the new site. More details when you sign up.

Next week I'll start the Sass series I promised for today. The series will start with the very basics and build up to more intermediate and advanced topics throughout the rest of the year and into next year.

Download a free sample from my book Design Fundamentals.

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