I cannot count how many times I have set myself up for failure. Many times it’s rooted in my firm devotion to procrastination. So often I’ve found myself in a situation that could have been made infinitely easier if only I’d done something different earlier. In these moments of clarity, a single thought echoes through the distance of time.
“Past Me is a dick.”
I’m guessing I’m not alone here. We likely all have these moments. But today, I was treated to a nice little surprise. Past Me had actually done something useful! I know, nobody is more surprised than I am.
I started the day fully prepared to draft up and post some cornerstone pages on my WordPress site, Due By Friday.
For some backstory: this is a site I’ve self-hosted for a few years, and have done very little with. I had big plans for it to be a place where I could document projects I’d work on every week. It ended up being a place where I’d log in once a year or so and post an apology for not keeping up with it, and promising to do better that year. I know you know how this goes.
Anyways, I looked at the site and discovered, to my surprise more than anyone’s, that I’d actually set up some cornerstones already. And not only were they there, but they’d been there since New Year’s Eve, 2015! Thinking back to 2015, I am certain I had no idea what a “cornerstone page” was. Yet here they were, already waiting for me to recognize their awesomeness.
I’d planned on setting up three pages. An About page, a Contact page, and a /now page. What I found was an About page, a Contact page, and a Projects page.
So two out of three done already! Good job, Past Me!
I reviewed the About and Contact pages, and decided they’re good to go as they are for now. The Projects page was written mostly to serve as an archive of past completed projects. Sadly, this page was devoid of any such completions. But that’s okay. It’s not like I haven’t done things. I just never took the time to write about them and keep the site up to date.
I decided to keep the Projects page to serve as an archive, and I set up a /now page to show what projects are currently being worked on. I updated the Projects page to provide a pointer for where one could find current projects, and that was that.
For me, the best part was that I was able to do all this, post new pages and update older pages, all within MarsEdit. Which is great, because the WordPress admin interface makes me bleed from my eyeballs a bit.
This is actually one of the big reasons why I never did much with this old WordPress site. The admin panel is such a friction point that it would negate any forward momentum I may have had any time I actually wanted to write something. Between lost text from a bad browser refresh to being lost in settings hell because I wanted to tweak a thing, I rarely found any kind of flow when working within the WordPress admin page.
Once again, this is where I’m finding MarsEdit to be a lifesaver for me. There’s just enough and not a bit more. I can write, I can tag and categorize, and I can post with one click. For me, that’s the sweet spot. I know everyone has their favorite tool, and good on you to everyone who has found their own, whatever it may be. But if you’re still looking for one, give MarsEdit a try.
So yeah, that’s this week’s goal essentially done! Tomorrow I’ll post a bunch of links I found useful throughout the week while working on this. And Sunday will be another weekly roundup.
No clue what next week will bring. I’ll think about it over the weekend. But I’m open to suggestions, and now you all have a way to send them. Just check out my Contact page 🙂