
Nothing Like a Deadline for Your Website Redesign
Website Redesign
Does your website make you cringe? Have you hesitated to send people to it because it’s so old and outdated? Stop postponing your website redesign. Also … what about those blog articles you have written but not published? They deserve to be posted in a shiny new website.
Rolling Past Inertia
You’re not alone. Beginning a website redesign project is daunting. We put it off and put it off … and the longer we wait, the worse it seems to get. The simple principle that stopped me from starting: inertia. Call it a rut if you want. Regardless, I spent a long time “not starting.”
The good news is there’s always tomorrow. {*grin*}
Baby Steps
I got some good advice from a colleague. He said to just rebuild it, not try to rewrite everything. This plan was hard to embrace at first. It’s contrary to how I work with my clients – content comes first. But he had a point. I already had content I could use. So my goal was to work on the design and rebuild it with the content as is.
Accountability
So I made myself accountable. YES, I said, I can do that. I will have something for you by Friday morning, I said. What?? It was Wednesday! What was I thinking?? A commitment turned out to be exactly what I needed. I HAD TO build a new site with the old content, because I didn’t have time to rewrite it.
Getting Started
My first attempt ended with me eating my own words. Words, words, words. All I saw was words, my words. Old words. Boring words. Words I had seen for too long and didn’t want to see anymore. I started rewriting portions of my site. My momentum stalled, my ideas got stuck, and I got mired in the minutia I had sworn to ignore.
The next day, I stepped back and looked at my progress. There was none. I had let the bossy inner editor get the best of me.
Stepping Back
I took a giant step back, removed my [virtual] glasses, and got back to work. The lights dimmed, the text blurred … I ignored my tired old content and started designing. I would rewrite later. It was so liberating! I faked myself out and got it done.
Manageable Chunks
Like any project, splitting the end goal into smaller tasks helped me get started.The process was freeing. For so long I hadn’t passed GO, didn’t collect $200. All I did was stare and snarl. Now in short order, I had built the structure for my new site, and got serious about my website redesign. My self-imposed deadline and accountability, as well as my virtual blinders, helped me kick it into high gear.
There’s always more to do, but then again … there’s always tomorrow.