A Fresh Coat of Paint

2009 was a year of significant firsts and major changes.

• I got engaged.
• I moved to Colorado.
• I made a career pivot.

They are all notable in their own right, but today's topic has to do with the last one. Having finished off ten years of college to receive my BS and Ph.D., I switched from nanotech to web tech. For the next nine years, I lived and breathed everything related to designing, building, maintaining, and scaling websites. At one point, I helped scale an agency that produced hundreds of websites over my five years stint there. But as my career evolved and titles changed, my actual involvement in any given site was almost nil. So while I used to be able to code and style sites in my sleep, I became rusty.

The result was my website badly needed a redesign, and yet I knew it would be a massive undertaking. Well, at least that's what I kept telling myself in my head. The Rick from 2010-2012? He could have done it in 30 minutes. But the Rick in 2015-2019 kept putting it off and just never got around to it.

The problem was that the small issues I had with the prepackaged theme I used. They were just annoying enough that I wasn't proud of my site. It looked off enough that I sometimes hesitated to direct people there. After all, if a website is like a business card, I wanted to put my best foot forward.

Alas, a few nights ago, I had enough. While the changes are not Earth-shattering (they are mostly some improvements in readability and color contrast), I finally feel like I polished the edges enough. You probably didn't even notice or care, and that's awesome. But to me, it so refreshing to have those little details addressed. Like a fresh coat of paint on a house, it just looks and feels that much nicer even though most people driving by would never notice.

What about you? What small little thing have you put off for far too long that would feel as good as a fresh coat of paint looks?