I don’t know how many people are considered “regular readers” of this site (let alone any site, to be honest) because social media has changed how we find content, save it, and read it.
But if you’re someone who browses this site on any regular basis, then you’ve likely noticed that I’ve not posted anything related to development for a couple of weeks now.
Nothing’s wrong; life is good. But I’ve been taking a step back on several things in which I’m involved to take stock of essentially:
- what I’m doing,
- why I’m doing it,
- what I want to continue to do,
- and why I want to do it.
And if you were around when blogging was what it was, say, five years ago, then you know it’s considered “bad form” talk about not blogging and to get all apologetic about it.
I’m not getting apologetic about it, though.
Instead, I’m providing an update as to what I plan to do with this site moving forward.
And no, it’s not the type of post that contains anything related to WordPress development or programming.
A Return to Form
When you’ve been writing a blog for a long time, and it’s about to change in some capacity, doesn’t it make sense to at least lay out what’s happening?
I don’t know. I do know that I’d appreciate it if the sites to which I read our subscribe are bound to change to read about the reasons why.
So here are a few of the changes that I’ve been working on and what I plan to start doing.
First, for those who have been subscribed, have not been subscribed, or who are wondering about the status of a few things that I’ve normally done for the last year:
- I’ve canceled my newsletter. Each month, I was sending emails that were primarily a digest of everything I’d written in the past month. But that content is always accessible. So it’s one less thing for me to focus on and one less email in your inbox.
- I am retiring memberships. At the end of 2019, I’m going to be halting the membership section of this site and making all content available for free. Until then, existing memberships are free (and you should be receiving refunds or canceled subscriptions all the while maintaining your membership status) for the remainder of the year but not taking any new members.
As far as things go that are staying the same:
- I’m still open to partners for the site some of which you can view already in the sidebar (or under their respective menu on the site) and some I’m currently talking with.
- I’m still involved with the podcast at least for the remainder of this year.
And for the why behind all of this? I’ve thought a lot about the answer to this question, and it comes down to two things:
- 🍼 Our family is growing. In September, we’re going to welcome kiddo number three. I’m extremely excited, and because all kinds of things change in situations like that, I want to make sure I’m setting myself up to handle various responsibilities properly.
- ⌨️ Work is changing. With a change in how I’m working, I’m wanting to make sure I’m properly prioritizing everything properly and making the most of my time.
And finally, when I first started blogging about what I do for a living, it was meant to be a public journal of sorts. I want to do a bit of a return to form on that.
A Return To Form
Over time, my writing has drifted more into an “instructional style” of an article, or I’m writing as if I’m writing to someone other than me. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that.
But I’d like to start writing more in the direction of:
- Here was the problem I had (or have),
- Here is how I’ve fixed it (or am approaching it),
- Here’s how you may find this useful.
And I’m also considering using the site as a place to share various resources that I find useful or relevant.
I tend to share these on Twitter, but even that particular channel seems to be changing a bit – at least for me – and though I’ve considered starting an entirely new site just to collect and share bookmarks, perhaps this particular site will do just as well.
Anyway, that’s the long version of what you can expect (or, rather, why I’ve not been writing and what I plan to continue to write about).
With that, I should be back to my regular writing later this week.