Generally speaking, people often set out to try to set their plans, goals, and resolutions at the beginning of the year. I did though it’s not really something I typically do, and here we are at the beginning of March and I’ve really only done a portion of what I thought I was going to be doing.

I mean, I haven’t even touched Swift yet (and I don’t know if I will end up doing so).

Then again, Pressware has been growing and has resulted in the need for me to make some changes both to what I’m doing with some of my open source plugins and with what I’m planning to do with the business itself.

It’s both an exciting time, but it’s also a really weird time because it’s causing me to evaluate some changes that I’m making in a number of things that I’ve been working on for several years at this point.

When this happens, I can’t help but feel a little bit of tension – maybe even some fear – of letting certain things go. On top of that, I think that it can also breed a sense of relief as it may bring about a little bit of breathing room.

But does it really? I mean, when we wind down work on one thing, are we just making space to spin up something new?

For me personally, what I’m finding out – and it’s sort of a cliche – is that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Though I may be winding down certain things, other things are starting up.

The More Things Change

For the most part, I think that those who are involved in open source – either for fun, for profit, or for both – are in it partly because of the labor of love.

Maybe this isn’t true – I’ve not really been an active contributor to the code bases of many open source projects, but it is a world that I’ve followed closely for years (anything from something as large as Linux to, say, a simple jQuery plugin and everything in between), and it’s an economy in which I’ve been able to make a living by building things for others using said tools and extending said tools.

And to say that I don’t appreciate the economy and enjoy working within it would be an understatement. It’s a nice thing to be able to start a small, one-man shop working on contracts for one another while slowly growing to a point of bringing on additional help and then eventually getting to a point where the projects that you once maintained for free are becoming difficult to juggle.

The More They Stay The Same

I’ve talked a bit about this particular tension in a recent post and as we’re heading into the final month of the last quarter of the year, I’m planning to spend a lot of time looking at various things that I have going on and trying to lean out certain responsibilities and narrow my focus on some of those that I already have.

Ultimately, I want to be able to be able to do the very best work on possible on the things that I enjoy most. The downside of doing this is that I have to make a decision on what things to let go and what things to focus on.

Throughout the month, I’m likely going to have a few posts detailing some of the changes happening with certain things that I’m working on (such as the WordPress Plugin Boilerplate and some of my other plugins), but I also hope to be able to share some of the new things that are coming down the pipeline primarily as it relates to Pressware.