Thinking about the simple layout

personal thought tech web · note · March 14, 2024 · 468 words

I think it’s kinda funny that I am motivated to make this alternate version, but not to actually write posts.

That’s what I was thinking while making it: ok, I can access this site from anywhere. But what is there to read?

I feel like this is a common occurence with a lot of blogs out there, especially ones by web developers: most likely only a few posts, and the majority of them are simply explaining how the site was implemented, in whatever static site generator or CSS styling they picked. Nothing about, say, life… advice… anything that isn’t about the website.

It’s nice to appreciate what goes into a website, but I would like to gain knowledge or feel something in regards to other stuff too!

So, that’s the thing. Because I don’t have motivation to write other kinds of posts, and because I want to put writing posts over tending to the website, it leaves me with inactivity.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so concerned about that stuff. After all, it was honestly really fun to work on my website again as well as work with old browsers and tech in this way! It’s a really fun interest of mine, after all.

Maybe if I want to just tend to my website for the fun of it, I should let myself enjoy that as a hobby.

About motivation

Motivating myself to do personal projects is really really hard!! (Notice how I get nothing completed ever?)

With that said, simply engaging with the project, no matter how minor, is really helpful to do it.

I learned that trick from the creator of corru.observer (which is a very cool thing and you should check it out, but that’s unrelated): just “touch it”. Not just think about doing it, but it’s not about working on it either. Just visit your project. Open it in your code editor, your image editor, video editor, text editor. It could be physical too: get out that journal/(note,sketch,text)-book to the page your project resides on. Visit it. Touch it. That’s it! Then, try to engage with it in an enjoyable way.

Clearly, sitting down to write a post is not what helps me engage with my website. I can think about what I want to write throughout the day, but I can never motivate myself to specifically sit down and write.

But when I start touching my website by opening up the project in my editor, and I start engaging with it by, in this case, fiddling around with an alternate layout, that’s when I can get motivated.

And now, here I am, at the end of this note which I wrote in a single sitting.

Resolve to touch your projects if you hope to finish them. Don’t let them slip away to inactivity!

-james