Re: Deleting my "Now" Page
Noisy Deadlines wrote a piece last week called Deleting my "Now" Page. You should go take a read, but the summary is basically she's made the decision to delete her Now page.
[...] in reality, I was never good at keeping it up to date. I mean, sometimes I'd rather just write a post about what is going on in my life. Also, the “now” aspect of it reminds me of social media. It gives an urgency to communicate what is going on “right now” and I prefer sharing things more intentionally. And to be honest, that's probably not the sense that Derek Sivers originally had for the “Now” page, but I just perceive it that way unconsciously.
(Emphasis mine.)
I completely understand this feeling, that feeling compelled to keep your "Now" page updated can certainly create a sense of anxiety. Personally, I've enjoyed keeping the page updated. It's given me some opportunities to play with some of the features of 11ty on my personal page, and have some fun with some CSS. For example, on my own Now page, I have a couple of "carousels" that display books I'm currently reading, as well as books I've recently finished:
I set up a screenshot because it's possible if I link to it, it might not exist (more on this in a bit).
The idea of writing week notes to keep tabs on what's happening right now resonates with me as well:
The “Week Notes” are a better way of registering what I'm up to. It's a nice chunk of time to look back to and reflect upon and I like the regularity of it.
I started writing week notes 18 weeks ago now, and I have a fun time doing that. When I first started the week notes I didn't have very many notes in there but recently I've been writing longer and longer bullet points to the point that these are almost "full" blog posts in and of themselves. It's to the point where I am actually wondering if I shouldn't move my week notes back to this blog, but I also like having something to post on my personal page. I digress.
The point I'm getting to is that I'm feeling less and less compelled to update my "Now" page. I haven't updated it since the beginning of August and I've watched three movies since the "Watching" section was last updated. It's not for lack of enthusiasm for doing it - I find it fun to just have to edit the JSON file and it's magically updated on my page without having to edit the page itself. But like ND I find it more satisfying and more relevant to include this kind of stuff in my weekly notes.
But I'm not at the point of deleting my "Now" page. I still think it has a purpose and it is still something separate from my "About" page. I like that it shows what I'm currently working on, and in general what I'm doing. But I think I'm going to edit out the active media consumption - at least the part about keeping it updated regularly. What I would rather do is what I'm doing for the music section: a link to my Last.FM profile. In place of updating the books and movies I've read/watched, I'll just include links to Storygraph and Letterboxd, respectively. I'm already logging my things there, there's not much point in making the effort twice.
I don't know when I'm going to make this change, it's not too high of a priority right now. But at some point it will become simplified and require less maintenance and fewer updates. Thanks ND for making me think about how I'm using my websites!
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