Minimalism

I've built many websites over the years, or rather the same handful of website over and over and over. I've got a decent amount of experience in it compared to most people that have never worked in website development or content, but like a lot of things in life quantity does not equal quality.

Almost every time I build a site I start with Wordpress, and then a fancy building engine on top of it (usually Avada or TagDiv, both very nice if you put the time into them), cusomtize one of the pre-built themes for hours or days on end and then dodgy up a bit of content for a while and forget about it for months or years after that. Even shortcutting the code part and having fancy graphical bells and whistles, click & drag blocks and elements.. at the end of the day I found myself forever rebuilding and never satisfied.

In 2023 my private life had a massive upheaval and I scaled down from having tonnes of space and many many posessions, to owning only what I needed and things that bought me joy (which in case was more like if I would realistically get around to using it or not). At the time I made light of it telling people I was "Mari Kondo'ing" everything, but inside I felt myself transofrming into a minimalist. After decades of collecting and keeping odds and ends just in case I needed them (some might call it hoarding...) I just didn't care anymore. I looked at it all and couldn't care less if it was there or gone, so I sold it all.

As time has past since then I've tried to keep the same mentality. Only spend on what you'll use. Don't obtain things unless you're ready to use them, and keep things simple. It has helped me complete study, spend more quality time with my kids, have less house work today allowing more time spent on my passions that give me joy, and make progress because I'm not splitting my attention 1000 different ways.

This website help represent the culmination of that change as well. While there is no click and drag page builders, no CMS back end, and no bells and whistles.. this site may just be my favourite one I've ever made. It's simple, it's fast, and it's rock solid. It does everything it needs to and doesn't have the distractions. There is nothing to touch except the content, so that's all I need to look at.

I'm an IT guy, but not a website guy, so trust me when I say there was a whole lot of RTFM.. but the KISS principal proved king at the end of the day.