The Retrospector

For those of you familiar with the previous site design, you’ll probably notice a significant change. The new layout contains a number of changes that are behind the scenes and may not be noticeable to most of you, but it has been quite an enlightening project for me.

Getting more technical

For the past couple of months, I’ve spent more time concentrating on hosting the site in a more maintenance-free design where I can focus on the content instead of the look and feel. The previous version of the blog was a very rough-drafted hack that was more of a rapid prototype than anything else. I used it to learn a bit more about php and blogging in general.

I’ve now applied the knowlege gained the last year toward a design that I like and know that the plans I have for the site will be easy to put in place because of the thought put into the project.

Designing for the future

This really leads into my next post that I’m working on about designing towards low maintentance, but I’ll just not discuss it more. Mostly, I’m excited about finishing up some major projects and milestones in my life and am celebrating by launching this new design at the same time.

In the meantime, please know that I’ll continue to tweak things and wrap up some of the customizations I’ve yet to complete that didn’t seem quite as important as the change-over happening now instead of later.

Ok, so now what?

Another side-effect of spending more time on the site mechanics the last couple of months is that I have just tons of topics that I’m wanting to post about. I look forward to sharing my thoughts again on a more regular basis. In the meantime, I’ll just marinate my posts for awhile until they make their way to the site.

Recently, I stumbled onto a couple of articles that really caught my curiosity. Steve Pavlina’s How to Become an Early Riser and How to Get Up Right Away When Your Alarm Goes Off really made me read almost every word in each.

“Can I do that?” “I can do that.” *yawn* Hmmm. “Maybe I’ll try that tomorrow.”

I can totally relate to what he’s talking about there in both articles. So the last 2-3 weeks I’ve decided to give myself an honest test as to whether or not I can actually follow through with becoming a morning person.

Applying to my own schedule

A rule of thumb that I’ve known for a long time is that it only takes a few weeks to really kick a habit or make a new one. I don’t know where I picked up that piece of information, but it’s always held pretty true for me. I figured if I can get through a couple solid weeks of waking up really early on a schedule like Steve pointed out, I shouldn’t have any trouble sticking with it for the long run.

So every morning, between 5:00am and 6:00am, I’m up and at ‘em like releasing a coiled spring. For 3 weeks (not including a weekend out of town) I’ve been hopping out of bed and mosying down to the basement for some time on the computer, and the occasional workout on the home gym.

It’s actually working out much better and easier than I thought it would. I’ve been pretty skeptical about being able to switch from my good ol’ high-school and college-day schedule that’s been embedded in my subconscious somewhere for years. (I’m very much a night person and can stay up really late on a whim without any trouble.)

(more…)