When I launched my site last year, I hoped to make it evolve much more than it has evolved so far. I also hoped to produce more content, be it articles, notes, but also bookmarks and other content from the IndieWeb.
It has evolved a little bit but several things, technical and personal, prevented me from achieving what I wanted.
To make a post-mortem and move forward, I make a point about what was not and what I need to put in place to streamline my process.
Technically
Lack of CMS (Content Management System)
From a content point of view, I realize that not having a CMS to write, blocks me enormously.
I write my content in my code editor or in Notion to produce Markdown files. This is not intuitive and at the user experience level, we can do better.
I need to get my computer out, open my IDE and start writing. It’s pretty off-putting for me and not at all suitable for mobile use, even with Notion.
After a day working on a computer, going home and taking out my personal computer for that, I get tired. I therefore need a simpler and more adapted solution.
I use Notion for the project management of my personal site but also, as I mentioned, to write some content. This may be something to dig into as they offer an API to retrieve it.
But, for me, the best is to have my own CMS with an interface adapted to mobile. That way, at night, no fuss. My phone is always by my side and ready to use.
IndieWeb
I had indicated that I wanted to embrace the world of IndieWeb but that stopped at this article.
Nice ideas but little action. I started tagging some of my content types with the micro-formats defined by IndieWeb but I still have a lot to apply.
As with content writing, I have not put in place simple ways to interact with my content, such as posting on social networks, liking or bookmarking content from other sites but also responding to articles or others.
I have the idea to use bookmarklets on computer and, an app on mobile, to simplify this type of actions. This takes time and I have to think a minimum to have something effective.
My thousand little tasks
As I go around the web, I pick up a lot of ideas from the sites I come across. People really have too many great ideas. Long live the web!
But as a result, I have many technical things that are added to what I would like to put in place but for which I did not have time to deal with it.
Personally
The content and technical aspects are not negligible in the lack of evolution but a much more important point stopped me.
What stopped me the most was a personal point. We had a second daughter last April, which was a huge joy for us!
But she was hospitalized after two weeks, for a month and a half. Despite the end of this hospitalization, she still has problems that make it necessary to take care of her daily.
So I did not have the head to look at my site. My priority was her and always is.
It is still complicated even if we start to create a new daily routine, taking into account, the fatigue related to a newborn and these constraints.
Following
In view of what I just mentioned, I will have to greatly simplify my process in order to evolve my site as I want.
The main points I want to address are:
- adding a CMS or integrating the Notion API into my process
- Implementation of automatic actions through continuous integration and continuous deployment;
- the use of bookmarklets and/or mobile application allowing me to interact with the IndieWeb
Now that our daily lives are getting organized, I hope to find more time to evolve my site again and finally make it look like what I imagine.
In addition, this would also allow me to change my mind, which would be a plus in our situation.