Productivity
Obsessions and Balance
13 August 2008
Recently I’ve become interested in
learning a little about HTML and CSS. I started with a reasonable
desire: make a family web site. Its purpose: share thoughts, family
news, photographs, and links to other projects (my boat-building endeavor) and
hobbies (cycling). There was a web design program (iWeb) included
in the iLife suite packaged with every Mac. I played around with it
some but decided I wanted a little more flexibility. That led to a
lot of web research and eventually I selected RapidWeaver because it seemed to have a good
balance between ease of use and options in page layout. Or so I
thought.
I also picked up a well-written intro textbook on HTML and CSS (Head First HTML published by O’Reilly) which was a perfect level of simple and useful for a semi-intelligent newbie like myself. As I began actually constructing the content of the site, I became dissatisfied with the built in themes of Rapidweaver and so I looked for additional themes. I started with research into free themes available on the web and there are quite a few. People have done a lot of work to put these themes together and provide the code underlying them. I selected one but rapidly learned it also had some elements that were sub-optimal (primarily due to color conflicts between fonts and page backgrounds). So I tried to use my newly-found meager HTML skills to pick new colors. That lead to more conflicts, more research, more web time, more confusion, with a slow slide into frustration and a gradually increasing obsession to get the thing right. I solicited help from my computer-savvy brother-who tried to help-but eventually I realized the whole project was out of kilter.
That is, the effort involved had outstripped the original purpose: enhance the family life. Now my little obsession was becoming detrimental to the greater good. It was time to re-balance.
So I ditched the original theme because it was too much work (even if it was free) and paid $12 for a commercial theme I liked just as well and was better designed. And I told myself to relax and let it go. The darn thing can evolve over time--doesn’t have to be perfect the first week. So the lessons:
I also picked up a well-written intro textbook on HTML and CSS (Head First HTML published by O’Reilly) which was a perfect level of simple and useful for a semi-intelligent newbie like myself. As I began actually constructing the content of the site, I became dissatisfied with the built in themes of Rapidweaver and so I looked for additional themes. I started with research into free themes available on the web and there are quite a few. People have done a lot of work to put these themes together and provide the code underlying them. I selected one but rapidly learned it also had some elements that were sub-optimal (primarily due to color conflicts between fonts and page backgrounds). So I tried to use my newly-found meager HTML skills to pick new colors. That lead to more conflicts, more research, more web time, more confusion, with a slow slide into frustration and a gradually increasing obsession to get the thing right. I solicited help from my computer-savvy brother-who tried to help-but eventually I realized the whole project was out of kilter.
That is, the effort involved had outstripped the original purpose: enhance the family life. Now my little obsession was becoming detrimental to the greater good. It was time to re-balance.
So I ditched the original theme because it was too much work (even if it was free) and paid $12 for a commercial theme I liked just as well and was better designed. And I told myself to relax and let it go. The darn thing can evolve over time--doesn’t have to be perfect the first week. So the lessons:
- Free is great but sometimes means more work
- Projects must be re-assessed for harmony with their original purpose
- Don’t create pressure to finish something that’s really open-ended-or, in other words: enjoy the journey instead of anticipating the destination